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Re: Odds are surprisingly high
Tom Brosz — (archived)

The press release makes this statement:

...Proposed moderate-sized U.S. and European space telescopes could allow for the detection of many much smaller Earth-like planets by transit techniques within the next decade. The chances for detection will be more challenging, since detecting a planet orbiting at an Earth-like distance will mean a much tighter orbital alignment is needed for a transit. And the transits would be much less frequent for planets with an orbital period of a year, rather than days. Eventually, study of the atmosphere of these Earth-like planets will require meticulous measurements by future larger space telescopes.

The implication is that the odds of this category of planets being observable--the ones we're really interested in--are much worse than 1 in 10.

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