Search For Earth-Like Worlds Focuses On Sun's Siblings 64
astroengine writes "The search for 'Earth-like' worlds just became even more Earth-like. Researchers from the University of Turku, Finland, have begun the search for the Sun's siblings in the hope that they may play host to exoplanets. Since these stars 'grew up' in close proximity to our Sun inside a stellar nursery some 4.5 billion years ago, they may have shared more than just star-building materials. Through the biology-spreading hypothesis 'panspermia,' they may have also shared the basic building blocks for life. Two sibling candidates have now been found and the researchers hope to survey the two stars — which contain similar metals and are of a similar age to our Sun — for bona fide Earth-like worlds. Could these worlds have life? If they do, extraterrestrial life may have more in common with us than we ever imagined."
Re:Under the street light (Score:3, Interesting)
No, the idea is that life like ours is probably more likely in star systems that resemble our own, on planets that resemble our own. We're less likely to find planets resembling our own around red dwarfs.
billions of worlds with life (Score:4, Interesting)
There are probably billions of worlds with life...and probably millions of worlds with intelligent life...yet the best we can probably ever do is find indirect evidence of their existence. Makes me kind of sad. Still we should continue trying.