Title: How many planets in our universe could support life? | HowStuffWorks
Headings: How many planets in our universe could support life?
How many planets in our universe could support life?
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Content: The planets must be near a star or have cloud cover that keeps moisture locked in. With hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way, there are a lot of habitable zones out there. So that's the most recent answer we can give about our own galaxy. Which, lest we forget, is one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe. Each galaxy is chock-full of stars, each of which could potentially neighbor a not-too-hot, not-too-cold planet. Best guess that researchers have? 50 sextillion [source: Anthony ]. In other words, it's not entirely realistic for anyone to "predict" how many hospitable planets there are in the universe, since we're just starting to understand the planets in our own galaxy. But it's also not entirely unrealistic for me to hope that one of them is made of Play-Doh.