6 billion planets like Earth? Scientists make stunning estimate

Astronomers propose new estimate of Earth-like planets in the Milky Way galaxy.

Credit: NASA/Ames Research Center/W. Stenzel/D. Rutter
  • Astronomers make new analysis based on data from NASA's Kepler space telescope.
  • The researchers estimate there may be as many as six billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy alone.
  • The scientists looked for planets that would be able to host life.
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#3: Earth at 2° hotter will be horrific. Now here’s what 4° will look like. | Top 10 2019

Third on the Big Think 2019 countdown reveals this is what the world will be like if we do not act on climate change.

  • The third most popular video of 2019 presents a frightening truth: The best-case scenario of climate change is that world gets just 2°C hotter, which scientists call the "threshold of catastrophe".
  • Why is that the good news? Because if humans don't change course now, the planet is on a trajectory to reach 4°C at the end of this century, which would bring $600 trillion in global climate damages, double the warfare, and a refugee crisis 100x worse than the Syrian exodus.
  • David Wallace-Wells explains what would happen at an 8°C and even 13°C increase. These predictions are horrifying, but should not scare us into complacency. "It should make us focus on them more intently," he says.
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Use these phrases when talking about climate change

Phrases like "Global warming" and "climate change" don't carry any weight.

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  • A neurological study shows that there are better ways to get someone to care about the threat of a climate in crisis.
  • Catastrophe and more visceral words are more likely to make someone take action.
  • Framing the problem in a different way can make naysayers come over to the cause.
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A tectonic plate may have split apart, pulling Europe toward Canada

Geologists may have spotted evidence of the beginning stages of a subduction zone, a process that drives the movement of Earth's tectonic plates.

  • Geologists have long puzzled over a flat, featureless region off the coast of Portugal that's been the location of several earthquakes.
  • A team may have confirmed that a drip-shaped mass, buried 155 miles below the seafloor, might be responsible for the seismic activity.
  • If confirmed, the drip-shaped anomaly also suggests that geologists have for the first time observed the early stages of a subduction zone.
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Why the ocean you know and love won’t exist in 50 years

Can sensitive coral reefs survive another human generation?

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  • Coral reefs may not be able to survive another human decade because of the environmental stress we have placed on them, says author David Wallace-Wells. He posits that without meaningful changes to policies, the trend of them dying out, even in light of recent advances, will continue.
  • The World Wildlife Fund says that 60 percent of all vertebrate mammals have died since just 1970. On top of this, recent studies suggest that insect populations may have fallen by as much as 75 percent over the last few decades.
  • If it were not for our oceans, the planet would probably be already several degrees warmer than it is today due to the emissions we've expelled into the atmosphere.
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