Researchers from the Australian National University and the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen have unveiled that billions of stars in Milky Way have one to three planets that can support life.

With the help of the Kepler satellite and other instruments, astronomers have discovered thousands of exoplanets in the galaxy. Many of these exoplanets have many planets orbiting the host star.

The researchers have evaluated these planetary systems and calculated the probability for the number of stars in the Milky Way that could have planets supporting life. After the analysis, the researchers reached at the conclusion that there are billions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy having one to three planets in the habitable zone.

Habitable zone signifies the potential for the presence of liquid water and where life is possible. The researchers affirmed that on the basis of extra planets added to the 151 planetary systems, they have assessed the number of planets having habitable zone.

As per the analysis, one to three planets are in the habitable zone for each planetary system. The research published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society unveiled that for calculation purposes, they have used a new version of the 250-year-old method known as the Titius-Bode law.

Around 1770, the law was framed and has correctly calculated the position of Uranus even before it was discovered. “We decided to use this method to calculate the potential planetary positions in 151 planetary systems, where NASA's Kepler satellite had found between three and six planets”, said Steffen Kjaer Jacobsen at the Niels Bohr Institute.

NASA’s Kepler satellite has found around 1,000 planets around stars in the Milky Way.