A new study suggests there are tens of billions of rocky planets orbiting within the habitable zones of red dwarf stars in the Milky Way galaxy alone. That figure was reached by examining our neighborhood and extrapolating from that to the entire galaxy.
It's certainly a heartening number for those seeking alien life, but the raw number may overstate the case. Red dwarfs are small, dim stars, which means their habitable zones are extremely close to the stars. They are also prone to big eruptions, which could fry life on a close in planet. Such planets would also tend to be tidaly locked-- one hemisphere turned constantly to the star-- which wouldn't be conducive to life.
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