Will The Cosmos Inexplicably Decide To Give Us Another Planet To Ruin?

Astronomers are predicting that the first Earth-like planet orbiting another star will be discovered sometime around next May, if recent trends in discovering extrasolar planets keep up:

Astronomers to date have found superhot gas giants and snowball-like Neptunes, with the trend toward the discovery of a planet in the habitable zone. There’s no real dispute among astronomers that the discovery of an Earth-like planet is on the cards.

[Samuel ] Arbesman and [Gregory] Laughlin have taken this data and projected it forward to predict when an Earth-like planet is likely to crop up. The results have a heavy-tailed distribution in which there is a 66 per cent probability of finding the other Earth by 2013, a 75 percent probability by 2020 but a 95 percent probability by 2264.

However, they say the median date of discovery is in early May 2011, which for various reasons is the date they emphasis in their paper.

Arbesman and Laughlin caution that the Earth-like planet may not necessarily be habitable, thanks to its potential to be a little too hot. But I’m kind of hoping they’re wrong, because now that the Extreme Makeover/Bridezillas hybrid Bridalplasty is going to exist, we’re going to really need that chance to hit Ctrl-Alt-Del on this particular iteration of the planet. See you suckers on Virgin Galactic!

[HT: Jon Solomon]