Hi,
One study says Earth-like planets may be common.
This study says exactly the opposite.
If those hot gas giant orbits well inside the habitable
zone around a given star, and if that planet has reached its
position by migration through the habitable zone, then
Earth-like worlds may be far less common than would
otherwise be the case. Here's a good precis of research
on the migration question, as presented by a UK team.
There's a discussion of why habitable planets,
depending upon the effects of migration, might be
found in a mere 7 percent of the systems surveyed.
Of course, 7% of a lot of stars is a lot of planets.
The paper hasn't been published yet, but here's the
preprint:
http://arxiv.org/ftp/astro-ph/papers/0603/0603200.pdf
Sterling K. Webb
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