Earth&#39;s galactic neighborhood sure is crowdedS  Via XKCD
comes this lovely chart of Earth's newly-discovered exoplanetary
neighbors. Extrapolated from the latest batch of Kepler data,
the diagram depicts the number and sizes of planets thought to
exist in the habitable zones of stars within 60 light years of
Earth. Is it just me, or does it feel a little cramped in here
all of a sudden?  Planets orbiting Sun-like stars are labeled in
shades of red, while those orbiting stars unlike ours are
labeled in shades of grey. The designation is significant, as
the most recent Kepler data suggests 22% of Sun-like stars in
the Milky Way are orbited by potentially habitable, Earth-sized
worlds. And remember, that's just Earth-sized worlds, meaning
the number of potentially habitable worlds (regardless of their
size) within the habitable zones of these Sun-like stars is
actually even higher. We're talking billions of potentially
habitable planets, people. And don't even get us started on
habitable moons.  [Via XKCD]