Billions of stars in our galaxy could have as many as three planets orbiting them with life

Billions of stars in our galaxy could have as many as three planets orbiting them that could support life.

Astronomers used data from NASA's Kepler space telescope which has already confirmed that 1,000 planets are orbiting stars in the Milky Way - with another 3,000 possibles.

The researchers made their claim after calculating the chances of planets orbiting in the "habitable zone" - the region around a star which could contain planets capable of supporting liquid water.

Danish researcher Steffen Kjaer Jacobsen, from the University of Copenhagen, said: "According to the statistics and the indications we have, a good share of the planets in the habitable zone will be solid planets where there might be liquid water and where life could exist."

Scientists believe there could be many more planets that remain undiscovered by Kepler.

To estimate the positions of the "hidden" planets, the researchers updated a 250-year-old mathematical concept called the Titius-Bode law which predicts the spacing of the planets in the Solar System.

The scientists predicted a total of 228 planets in 151 systems and concluded that each system should have an average of one to three planets in the habitable zone.

Extending this theory further, they believe there could be billions of stars in the Milky Way with habitable zone planets where surface water and life could exist.