Universally-Speaking, We're In The Minority
In their quest to find solar systems analogous to ours, astronomers have determined how common our solar system is.
They've concluded that about 15 percent of stars in the galaxy host systems of planets like our own, with several gas giant planets in the outer part of the solar system.
"Now we know our place in the universe," said Ohio State University astronomer Scott Gaudi. "Solar systems like our own are not rare, but we're not in the majority, either."
Gaudi reported the results of the new study at the American Astronomical Society Meeting in Washington, DC, when he accepted the Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy.
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The find boils down to a statistical analysis: in the last four years, the MicroFUN survey has discovered only one solar system like our own -- a system with two gas giants resembling Jupiter and Saturn, which astronomers discovered in 2006 and reported in the journal Science in 2008.
"We've only found this one system, and we should have found about six by now -- if every star had a solar system like Earth's," Gaudi said.
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