Fresh data from the Kepler space telescope shows at least a fifth of stars surveyed have Earth-like planets in a "Goldilocks" orbit – a habitable sweet spot that's not too hot or too cold for liquid water – and that's just the stars we can see.
Planets need to be not too hot and not too cold
Of the 150,000 stars in our Milky Way galaxy snapped by the NASA probe in the past three years, more than 3,000 planets have been identified.
Scientists then focused on the stars similar to our Sun and tried to find planets between one and two times the size of Earth in those stars' Goldilocks orbital zones.
Their findings suggest that 22 per cent of those stars had planets about the size of Earth that could harbor liquid water – a basic building block for life as we know it. The team said the actual total could be much higher given the difficulty involved in finding them. Kepler relies on seeing planets pass directly in front of the target star on the same orbital plane as the telescope.
Signal to noise makes it tough to find new planets this small
"What this means is, when you look up at the thousands of stars in the night sky, the nearest Sun-like star with an Earth-size planet in its habitable zone is probably only 12 light years away and can be seen with the naked eye. That is amazing," said UC Berkeley graduate student Erik Petigura, who led the analysis of the Kepler data.
The team looked at 42,000 stars that are similar to Sol and found 603 planets orbiting them at various distances. Of these ten were Earth-sized and distant enough from their stars to harbor liquids suitable for creating life.
Geoffrey Marcy, a professor of astronomy at Berkeley, extrapolated the findings across the open void of space, adding: "With tens of billions of Earth-like planets in each galaxy, our entire universe must contain billions of billions of Earth-like planets."
Is this the location of Nu-Earth?
However, that's just planets that can support life – there's no guarantee that they actually do or that they could support human existence. Finding that out is going to be a problem for the next generation, according to Natalie Batalha, Kepler mission scientist at NASA Ames Research Center.
She explained that there isn't any existing hardware, either on Earth or in orbit, that can answer the question of whether these smaller planets are habitable, but both the Hubble and Spitzer telescopes have been able to analyze the composition of the larger gas giants found in outer space.
"Is there hardware capable of detecting the atmosphere and its constituents of an Earth-like planet? The answer is no," she told El Reg. "But there are plans on the books to do exactly that and within the next 50 years we're going to see the characterization of their atmospheres.
"Beyond 50 years, the long-term object is to image the surfaces of these planets with a resolution that could detect land features and the light that reflects off them, to take spectrums of that light to really understand what's on the surface of the planet and looking for markers of life."
Congressional hearing on search for extraterrestrial life – live updates
• Experts from Nasa, MIT and Library of Congress testify
• 'High likelihood' of life in neighbouring galaxies
• Congress hears plea for more Nasa project funding• Read the blog summary
The SMC, a small galaxy about 200,000 light years way that orbits our own Milky Way spiral galaxy. Is there life there? Photograph: Nasa/AFP/Getty Images
Summary
The hearing has wrapped. No conclusive evidence as to the existence or not of extraterrestrial life emerged today on Capitol Hill. But as multiple committee members were at pains to mention, the hearing was more fun and informative than the usual fare. Here's a summary of where things stand: • The likelihood of life existing on planets "in our neighborhood" is high, according to the collective wisdom of three of the country's top space scientists. It may be microbiotic life. It may be little green guys. Whatever the case it's probably out there. • The completion of the James Webb space telescope project and other exploration ventures is essential to the search for life on other planets. New technology seeks to measure biosignature gases on planets outside the solar system, a large proportion of which could indicate life. • The search for such life is thought to have societal benefits in the form of spinoff technology, stronger science education and inspirational mojo. • Funding for Nasa and science exploration is crucial if researchers are to carry the search for extraterrestrial life forward. What can we do? Congress asked the witnesses. Write checks, the witnesses replied.
All three witnesses say they believe that there is "life out there." Asked for brief answers, they say "yes," "yes," and "yes."
Rep. Chris Stewart, Republican of Utah, is taking this hearing to places no Congress has gone before.
"Let's assume that we find life? What do we do then?" he asks. "How does that change things with us in the way we view ourselves?"
"We do that with Twitter," Dick jokes. The audience laughs. Huh?
"No this is intelligent life," is Stewart's riposte. Ha.
The avuncular Hall is back up for some comic relief. He says he has a question "on behalf of Democrats and Republicans: Do you think there's life out there? And are they studying us? And what do they think of New York City?
Seager says the Milky Way galaxy contains 100bn stars and the universe is thought to contain 100bn galaxies. "Do the math," she says.
Hall says there's no way he's going to do the math. He says there's three things he never understood about math: addition and subtraction. Get it!
Seager says "The chance is very high... the question is, is there life near here, in our neighborhood of stars? We think the chances are good."
There has been a string of questions about science education in the USA, which the scientists agree needs to be re-structured and redoubled.
Two studies have revealed that the Hubble space telescope has detected water in the atmospheres of five planets outside the solar system, it was announced yesterday. NBC News reports:
The five exoplanets with hints of water are all scorching-hot, Jupiter-size worlds that are unlikely to host life as we know it. But finding water in their atmospheres still marks a step forward in the search for distant planets that may be capable of supporting alien life, researchers said.
"We're very confident that we see a water signature for multiple planets," Avi Mandell of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., lead author of one of the studies, said in a statement. "This work really opens the door for comparing how much water is present in atmospheres on different kinds of exoplanets — for example, hotter versus cooler ones."
Wearing his spacesuit Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev takes part in a preflight underwater training session in a pool at the Gagarin Cosmonauts' Training Centre in Star City centre outside Moscow on December 4, 2013. Oleg Artemyev is scheduled to blast off to the International Space Station (ISS) from the Russian leased Kazakhstan's Baikonur cosmodrome in March 2014. Photograph: -/AFP/Getty Images
Marc Veasey, Democrat of Texas, asks whether technology developed by Nasa could be used to detect deep-sea oil leaks.
Voytek says yes, astrobiology technology developed to detect hydrocarbons was used to locate and map the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
A Congressman is talking about how he studied biology in college.
Intermission: A selection from Freeman Dyson's stellar memoir, Disturbing the Universe (p.206 in the 1979 Basic Books edition):
Many of the people who are interested in searching for extraterrestrial intelligence have come to believe in a doctrine which I call the Philosophical Discourse Dogma, maintaining as an article of faith that the universe is filled with societies engaged in long-range philosophical discourse. The Philosophical Discourse Dogma holds the following truths to be self-evident:
1. Life is abundant in the universe.
2. A significant fraction of the planets on which life exists give rise to intelligent species.
3. A significant fraction of intelligent species transmit messages for our enlightenment.
If these statements are accepted, then it makes sense to concentrate our efforts upon the search for radio messages and to ignore other ways of looking for evidence of intelligence in the universe. But to me the Philosophical Discourse Dogma is far from self-evident. There is as yet no evidence either for it or against it. Since it may be true, I am whole-heartedly in favor of searching for radio messages. Since it may be untrue, I am in favor of looking for other evidence of intelligence, and especially for evidence which does not require the cooperation of the beings whose activities we are trying to observe.
The search for biosignature gases seems to fit with that second bit.
Rep. Bill Posey, Republican of Florida, get real.
"You've pretty much indicated life on other planets is inevitable," he says. "It's just a matter of time and funding."
Then he asks the scientists to say what they think the biggest threat to life on Earth is.
"We've had the recent experience of the fireball over Russia," Dick says. "I would have to say that asteroid impacts are a danger."
"The Earth is in outer space," he says. Mull that one for a second.
Seager says "I think overpopulation of our planet is going to be our biggest problem."
Voytek says "Essential resources can be limiting." The failure to find alternative energy is the threat, she says.
Seager is literally breathless. She's talking about CubeSats, which are cute, cube-shaped satellites. She says such relatively inexpensive tools could produce a swelter of breakthroughs in space exploration. Seager is a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" grant recipient. Her enthusiasm for negotiating ways to continue space exploration despite hostile appropriations committees is detectable without sophisticated instruments.
"[Astrobiology is] a legitimate science now," Dr. Seager says. "We're not looking for aliens or searching for UFOs." We're using standard astronomy, she says.
Dr. Dick says exploration itself is American.
Seager says the record of science education in the United States is a record of missed opportunities. "All children are born curious about the world, and somehow that ends up getting squashed out of them," she says.
Voytek agrees. Kids often like dinosaurs and space and the planets, she says. Cultivating those interests would strengthen science itself, she says.
Rep. Ralph Hall of Texas, 90, the committee chairman emeritus, says the witness table may well constitute the most concentrated assemblage of brainpower he has witnessed. He's a charming folksy guy:
I just don't know how I'm going to tell my barber, or folks from my hometown, about your testimony here. But you must really enjoy waking up each morning and going to work.
If you're interested, you should watch this hearing live on House.gov.
The James Webb telescope is scheduled for launch in 2018, according to Nasa:
The project is working to a 2018 launch date. Webb will find the first galaxies that formed in the early Universe, connecting the Big Bang to our own Milky Way Galaxy. Webb will peer through dusty clouds to see stars forming planetary systems, connecting the Milky Way to our own Solar System. Webb's instruments will be designed to work primarily in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, with some capability in the visible range.
Webb will have a large mirror, 6.5 meters (21.3 feet) in diameter and a sunshield the size of a tennis court. Both the mirror and sunshade won't fit onto a rocket fully open, so both will fold up and open once Webb is in outer space. Webb will reside in an orbit about 1.5 million km (1 million miles) from the Earth.
The James Webb Space Telescope was named after the NASA Administrator who crafted the Apollo program, and who was a staunch supporter of space science.
A staff member of EADS Astrium GmbH works at the Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) in a clean room in Munich, Germany, 14 October 2009. The NIRSpec weighs some 200 kilograms and costs some 100 million euros. It was built for the James Webb Telescope (JWST) to discover weakest radiations in far off galaxies. Photograph: ANDREAS GEBERT/EPA
Dr Seager says scientists need a new big space telescope. "We need to find out how to put a large mirror in space," she says.
Smith asks how Congress can "expedite the process." "I have a hunch the answer's going to be funding," he says.
Voytek calls it "continued support": "I know that funding is tough, but it's the best thing that you can do."
Seager says outreach to "inspire the next generation" is "the best investment we have."
Dr. Dick says yes, funding, and beyond that just the security of knowing that Congress is behind research programs for the long haul.
Rep. Lamar Smith asks his first question. He notes that "Space exploration attracts bipartisan interest and bipartisan support." Space: the ultimate purple state.
Smith asks what Nasa plans to stick in its next astrobiology "roadmap," scheduled to be published next year.
Voytek says the next roadmap will prioritize the study of conditions for life OFF Earth, and the study of synthetic biology.
She talks about the discovery of extraterrestrial life as a question of "when," not "if". "I anticipate that the first life we find is likely to be microbial," Voytek says.
Dr. Dick, the astrobiology chair at the Library of Congress, is testifying. He says the field presents "tantalizing and interdisciplinary questions" linking microbiologists, astronomers and chemists.
Dr. Seager, from MIT, is testifying. She describes a very exciting search enabled by new telescope technology. "This is the first time in human history we have the technological reach to cross the threshold," she says.
The James Webb space telescope has opened new frontiers in the search for "biosignature gases" that can indicate life, she says. On Earth, oxygen is the biosignature gas. On planets outside the solar system, scientists are conducting a "search for gases that, we call it, don't belong, that exist in huge quantities, that can be attributed to life," Seager says.
We will not know if any exoplanet biosignature gas is produced by intelligent life or if it is produced by single-cell bacteria. [...]
If life really is everywhere, we actually have a shot at it.
Dr. Voytek, the Nasa senior scientist, begins her testimony by mentioning Kepler data released in early November showing that there are over 3,500 potential "exoplanets" in our galaxy, including 647 that are located in the “habitable zone."
The "habitable zone" is an area where a planet’s distance from its sun increases the possibility it could have surface temperatures that could support the existence of liquid water, according to a hearing charter.
The hearing has begun. Ranking member Eddie Bernice Johnson, Democrat of Texas, is calling for sustained funding for Nasa and other science agencies. Nasa has faced crippling budget cuts in the past decade. In the five years from 2008-2012 inclusive, the Nasa budget has fallen in nominal dollars, real dollars and as a percentage of the federal budget. The White House budget for FY 2014 proposes $17.7 bn for Nasa, a decrease of 0.3 percent (~$50 million) below the 2012 enacted level.
Today's witnesses are:
Dr. Mary Voytek, Senior Scientist for Astrobiology, Planetary Science Division, NASA
Dr. Sara Seager, Class of 1941 Professor of Physics and Planetary Science, MIT
Dr. Steven Dick, Baruch S. Blumberg Chair of Astrobiology, John W. Kluge Center, Library of Congress
Welcome to our live blog coverage of a congressional hearing into extraterrestrial life: is there anybody out there?
For years, Congress has failed to pass a budget and has run away from urgent national issues such as immigration reform. But sometimes the really big questions are easier to grapple with than the small stuff. We'll be listening today for a breakthrough.
Experts from Nasa, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Library of Congress will be testifying before the House committee on science, space and technology, which oversees the most prominent public science agencies including Nasa, the National Science Foundation and the National Weather Service.
The committee is chaired by Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas, whose nomination last year drew controversy because he has dabbled in climate change skepticism. The selection of Smith as chair also drew praise, however, because among potential Republican nominees he was viewed as the least hostile to science – a big plus for Congress' head of science oversight.
The hearing is titled Astrobiology: Search for Biosignatures in our Solar System and Beyond. Nasa has published astrobiology "roadmaps" concerned with three key questions, according to a hearing charter:
• How does life begin in the universe?
• Does life exist elsewhere in the universe?
• What is the future of life on Earth and beyond?
We'll see how far we get into these deep issues from 10am ET.
Scientists have controversially claimed that life on Earth originated in space after plankton were found on the exterior of the ISS.
Earlier this week cosmonauts announced they had found the microorganisms living on one of the windows of the Russian segment of the space station.
And while the exact origin of these critters is still unknown, it has been claimed they may have come from outer space - supposedly like life on Earth.
Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe is best known as the only scientist to argue against evolution during the 1981 Arkansas legal case against the teaching of creationism in schools. Now he claims that plankton on the ISS came from outer space and not from Earth
Experiments have previously shown bacteria can survive outside our planet, but this is thought to be the first time more complex life has been found this far out in space.
Their exact origin is not yet known and will require further study - although it may just be contamination from the American segment of the ISS.
At the time of the discovery Russian experts said the tiny organisms were carried to the station on air currents from the sea where plankton is found in abundance.
However others claim this is impossible, with another explanation being that the minute plants drifted onto the ISS from elsewhere in space.
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A controversial academic from the University of Buckinghamshire has claimed that plankton supposedly found on the exterior of the ISS (pictured) earlier this week are proof that life on Earth is of extraterrestrial origin. Professor Wickramasinghe says the plankton must have come from outer space
THE PANSPERMIA HYPOTHESIS
Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe is a leading proponent of panspermia, the hypothesis that life exists throughout the universe and is spread by asteroids and comets, in addition to simply drifting through the cosmos.
Panspermia proposes that life forms that can survive the effects of space, such as extremophiles, become trapped in debris that is ejected into space after collisions between asteroids and planets that harbour life.
These life-forms may travel dormant for an extended amount of time before colliding randomly with other planets or intermingling with protoplanetary disks.
If met with ideal conditions on a new planet's surfaces, the bacteria become active and the process of evolution begins, it is believed.
They insist this supports theories that plankton - one of the earliest forms of life - must have originally fallen to earth from space billions of years ago. And say this is proof that we are all of extraterrestrial origin, a theory known as panspermia.
Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, of the Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology, said algae-like organisms, or diatoms, have previously been found on meteorites which have fallen to Earth.
'Diatoms have been found on meteorites in Sri Lanka, but there has been no proof where they actually came from,' he said.
'This is the first time that we have evidence that points towards complex living organisms falling from the skies to Earth.
'The space station is orbiting the earth in a total vacuum, there is no air, so it is a total defiance of the laws of physics to say these organisms were blown into space from Earth.
'The only explanation is that they have come from elsewhere in space, and this supports long-held theories that plankton, and therefore all life on Earth including humans, originated from organisms in space.
'Everything that we have on the Earth is derived from space, including humans.'
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Russia's launches into space take place from the Baikonaur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan
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Experts had claimed that the plankton were not carried there at launch and must have been blown their (SIC) on air currents, because they are marine microorganisms not indigenous to the Russian launch site in Kazakhstan. A SEM microscope view of one type of plankton (not discovered on the ISS) is pictured
A CONTROVERSIAL ACADEMIC
Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe is best known as the only scientist to argue against evolution during the 1981 Arkansas legal case against the teaching of creationism in schools.
The 74-year-old Sri Lankan-born British mathematician obtained a PhD from Cambridge under the supervision of the late Sir Fred Hoyle.
The pair went on to collaborate on a body of work some credit with providing the basis of the field of astrobiology.
Their joint work on the infrared spectra of interstellar grains led to developing the hypothesis of panspermia, which proposes that cosmic dust in space and comets is partly organic - and may have 'seeded' life on Earth.
They further contended that extraterrestrial life forms continue to enter the Earth's atmosphere, and may be responsible for epidemic outbreaks, new diseases, and the genetic novelty necessary for macroevolution.
In 2003 he was joint signatory on a letter sent to The Lancet which suggested that the virus which causes SARS may not come from chickens, but could in fact be from outer space.
He was head of Cardiff University's Centre for Astrobiology until 2011, when funding was withdrawn and he was dismissed from his post.
He is now Director of the Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology at the University of Buckingham.
The discovery was made by Russian cosmonauts Olek Artemyev and Alexander Skvortsov while polishing the windows of the ISS during a spacewalk earlier this week.
They found the presence of plankton and other microorganisms using high-precision equipment.
The organisms are not native to Baikonur in Kazakhstan where the Russian modules of the station blasted off from so they could not have been carried into space from launch - although they could have been transferred from American parts of the station as Nasa's launches mostly take place near the Atlantic Ocean.
'The results of this experiment are absolutely unique,' said Vladimir Solovyev, chief of the Russian ISS orbital mission.
'We have found traces of sea plankton and microscopic particles on the illuminator [window] surface. This should be studied further.'
'[Plankton] is found on the surface of the ocean. It isn’t characteristic to Baikonur [Cosmodrome, from where Russian launches to the space station take place].'
Professor Milton Wainwright, microbiologist at Sheffield University, said previous experiments conducted by his team found evidence of diatoms 17 miles (27km) above the Earth’s surface.
However he said this is the first time they have been detected so far out with the ISS more than 200 miles (250km) from the planet.
He said: 'This is an astonishing development and there is no other explanation other than these organisms came from space in the first place, they could not have blown up from the Earth.
'This is the tipping point towards science proving that life is continually coming to Earth from space, and that it did so in the first instance.
'This is an amazing discovery, and there is now overwhelming evidence emerging that organisms on Earth came from outer space.'
Assembly of the International Space Station began in 1998 and today construction has effectively been completed.
Aside from housing astronauts to further humanity's space exploration efforts it also serves as a research laboratory for studies in biology, physics, astronomy and meteorology.
With regards to the plankton, Nasa has not yet confirmed whether similar findings have been made in the past, nor what their position is on the latest findings.
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Pictured is a Soyuz rocket carrying the crew of Expedition 31 to the ISS on 12 May 2012. Although it is not likely that plankton were been taken to the ISS from this location, it is possible that contamination from American launches may have spread organisms over the station
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Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe is a leading proponent of panspermia, the hypothesis that life exists throughout the universe and is spread by asteroids and comets, in addition to simply drifting through the cosmos. Panspermia proposes that life forms that can survive the effects of space and travel vast distances
Libertatem Prius!
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Aliens are everywhere!
Planets need to be not too hot and not too cold
Signal to noise makes it tough to find new planets this small
Is this the location of Nu-Earth?
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The SMC, a small galaxy about 200,000 light years way that orbits our own Milky Way spiral galaxy. Is there life there? Photograph: Nasa/AFP/Getty Images 
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