Hasta La Gadget!

The search for intelligent life might get a little bit more direction, thanks to a telescope designed to seek out habitable planets. Data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope is being used as a cosmic GPS to point radio detectors used in the SETI project towards the places in the sky that are most likely to support life.

According to this article by Discovery News, the Kepler telescope has already found 55 stars with planets in habitable areas. SETI is using this data to orient their radio telescopes on the most promising targets, looking for transmissions that might indicate any advanced forms of life.

Taking the data from the small section of the galaxy that Kepler has scanned, scientists estimate that this means there may be roughly 500 million planets capable of sustaining life in the Milky Way. Not only does this mean SETI has some clues to where they should point their telescopes, but the chances of finding anything out there when they do have greatly improved. Kepler’s data shows that between 3 and 10 percent of all stars could potential have an Earth-like planet in their orbit. This number is much larger than previous estimates and, while not significantly altering the way SETI looks for alien life, could make eventual success that much more likely.

Who knows, maybe thanks to SETI and Kepler we’ll end up coming across some alien prime-time TV sooner than we think. They’ll probably be the only channel not covering Charlie Sheen.

[via Discovery News]