[blockquote]Earth-Like Planets May Be More Common Than Once Thought, Says CU-Boulder-Penn State Study
Sept. 7, 2006

More than one-third of the giant planet systems recently detected outside Earth's solar system may harbor Earth-like planets, many covered in deep oceans with potential for life, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder and Pennsylvania State University.

The study focuses on a type of planetary system unlike our solar system that contains gas giants known as "Hot Jupiters" orbiting extremely close to their parent stars -- even closer than Mercury to our sun, said CU-Boulder researcher Sean Raymond. Such gas giants are believed to have migrated inward toward their parent stars as the planetary systems were forming, disrupting the space environment and triggering the formation of ocean-covered, Earth-like planets in a "habitable zone" conducive to the evolution of life, according to the new study.

"Exotic Earths: Forming Habitable Worlds with Giant Planet Migration" was published in the Sept. 8 issue of Science and authored by Raymond, Avi Mandell of both Penn State and Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and Steinn Sigurdsson of Penn State.

The study indicates Hot Jupiters push and pull proto-planetary disk material during their journeys, flinging rocky debris outward where it is likely to coalesce into Earth-like planets, said Raymond. At the same time, turbulent forces from the dense surrounding gas slow down the orbits of small, icy bodies in the outer reaches of the disk, causing them to spiral inward and deliver water to the fledgling planets. Such planets may eventually host oceans several miles deep, according to the study.
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Full press release here

I still sigh in despair at the things that are unsaid here, and the ways that these worlds are NOT earthlike - we're talking water worlds again, and as I've long argued, although aquatic life is very likely on such a planet, yet it also unlikely that technological civilisation is possible on such a planet.

Dolphins, fish, squid, seaweed, green slime aplenty, but no radios, rockets, or computers. (IMHO).