We Are Not Alone – 1.4 Trillion Exoplanets Discovered in Milky Way Galaxy!

April 11, 2011 - PRLog -- The Kepler group claims that at least 50% of stars contain planets yielding a conservative estimate of over 100 billion planets in the galaxy.  The Kepler group bases their estimate on their being about 200 billion stars in the Galaxy. Astrophysicists at the Noetic Advanced Studies Institute disagree with the Kepler Groups calculation procedure in several ways. First of all new accounting suggests that there are over 300 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Secondly from what we know of star formation it is suggested that over 95% of stars have planets; and that by the Titius-Bode Law the average number of planets is at least 5 per star. Our model is also not based on a Big Bang cosmology but the newly discovered Holographic Anthropic Multiverse where by the Anthropic Principle life is the rule not the exception and the inherent purpose of creation.
Until recently most scientists believed Earth-like planets with intelligence were a fluke and that we were probably alone in the cosmos. Recall the post war generation first hearing the news about the discovery of galaxies. This enlightenment had elements of both trauma and transcendence for people of the time. We wonder if in an anthropic multiverse the number of galaxies is infinite and how to contrast an understanding of finite versus infinite. In a Big Bang cosmology only the Hubble sphere exists; but in a Holographic Anthropic Multiverse, like a bag of marbles, an infinite number of nested Hubble-like spheres exist each with their own fine-tuned laws of physics. Then it becomes a conservative estimate that 50% of stars have a planet with conditions supporting life. We are brave enough to suggest that intelligent life is the rule not the exception. This comes from what we already know of the mechanistic properties of self-organized living systems. If life exists; it evolves.
There is now a before and after Kepler Era in astronomy. The release of the 1,202 exoplanet candidates from data collected with the Kepler spacecraft over the first 140 days of observation launches a new age of astronomy. The Kepler spacecraft is the 10th NASA Discovery mission launched in March 2009 was designed to search for exoplanets by measuring almost continuously the brightness of 156,453 stars in a small 12 degree diameter patch of the sky. Kepler’s 0.95m-telescope is able to detect attenuation of the host star located in the Cygnus, Lyra, & Draco constellations which shoould be due to the transit of an exoplanet passing between its star and Earth. A transit analysis gives direct estimate on the size of the exoplanet and its orbit.
The Kepler data provides opportunity to statistically study the properties of exoplanets and for the first time define families of exoplanets classified by size. Some of the preliminary data shows:
- 68 Earth-size exoplanets with radius (Rp) of less than 1.25 Earth radius (Re)
- 288 super-Earth size exoplanets with 1.25 x Re < Rp ≤ 2.0 x Re
- 662 Neptune-size exoplanets with 2.0 x Re < Rp ≤ 6.0 x Re
- 165 Jupiter-size exoplanets with 6.0 x Re < Rp ≤ 15 x Re
- 19 very-large-size with 15.0 x Re < Rp ≤ 22 x Re
With so many planets in the galaxy and the ability to find Earth-like planets, it could soon be possible for SETI researchers to discover intelligent life. Because of the Anthropic principle however Noetic Advanced Studies Institute astrophysicists believe a new type of Q-Telescope will be required.
   To study technical detailsof the anthropic multiverse see two recent volumes by Prof. Richard L. Amoroso: The Holographic Anthropic Multiverse, 2009 published by World Scientific Publishers; and Complementarity of Mind and Body, 2010 by Nova Science Publishers.

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The Noetic Advanced Studies Institute is an academic research organization performing fundamental research in all fields related to the Cosmology of Mind. This includes Philosophy of Mind, Astrophysics, Cosmology, Cognitive science, and Medical research.