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  • Habitable Planets: How Common Are They Around Red Dwarfs?
    The answer is: about one in five red dwarf stars

    Explanation:

    Astronomers used data from NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope to estimate how many planets are orbiting red dwarfs in the Milky Way galaxy. They found that about 1 in 5 red dwarfs has an Earth-size planet in its habitable zone. The habitable zone is the range of distances from a star where liquid water could exist on the surface of a planet.

    Here is the calculation:

    Kepler observed about 200,000 red dwarfs.

    About 10% of red dwarfs have an Earth-size planet in their habitable zone.

    Therefore, about 1 in 5 red dwarfs has an Earth-size planet in its habitable zone.

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