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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Number of Habitable Exoplanets Found by NASA's Kepler May Not Be So High After All [space.com]

The tally of potentially habitable alien planets may have to be revised downward a bit. To date, NASA's prolific Kepler space telescope [space.com] has discovered about 30 roughly Earth-size exoplanets in their host stars' "habitable zone" — the range of orbital distances at which liquid water can likely exist on a world's surface.

Or so researchers had thought. New observations by the European Space Agency's (ESA) Gaia spacecraft suggest that the actual number is probably significantly smaller — perhaps between two and 12, NASA officials said today (Oct. 26)

[...] Gaia's observations suggest that some of the Kepler host stars are brighter and bigger than previously believed, the officials added. Planets orbiting such stars are therefore likely larger and hotter than previously thought.

Also at NASA [nasa.gov].

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