Stars discovery 'boosts chance of alien life'
Chances of alien life existing beyond the Earth have been boosted by the discovery that the number of stars in the universe might be triple current estimates.
Astronomers have learned that small, dim stars known as red dwarfs are far more prolific than was previously thought.
Using powerful instruments at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, they detected faint light from red dwarfs in eight massive "elliptical galaxies" between 50 million and 300 million light years away.
As a result, it may be necessary to revise the total number of stars in the universe upwards by a factor of three.