There may be as many as six billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy - and they could host alien life, a new study has revealed.

Scientists from the University of British Columbia have used data from NASA ’s Kepler mission, and suggest that there may be as many as one Earth-like planet for every five Sun-like stars in the Milky Way.

 Jaymie Matthews, an author of the study, said: “Our Milky Way has as many as 400 billion stars, with seven per cent of them being G-type.

 "That means less than six billion stars may have Earth-like planets in our Galaxy.”



According to the researchers, Earth-like planets are more likely to be missed, as they’re so small and orbit far away from their stars.

 This means that the current ‘planet catalogue’ may only represent a small subset of planets in the Milky Way.
Michelle Kunimoto, co-author of the study, said: “I started by simulating the full population of exoplanets around the stars Kepler searched.

 “I marked each planet as 'detected' or 'missed' depending on how likely it was my planet search algorithm would have found them.

 “Then, I compared the detected planets to my actual catalogue of planets.
“If the simulation produced a close match, then the initial population was likely a good representation of the actual population of planets orbiting those stars."

 The study comes shortly after scientists from the University of Nottingham calculated that there could be more than 30 active communicating intelligent civilisations in the Milky Way.

 Astrophysics Professor Christopher Conselice, who led the research, said: "There should be at least a few dozen active civilisations in our Galaxy under the assumption that it takes five billion years for intelligent life to form on other planets, as on Earth.”