(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-02-18 16:20

LOS ANGELES -- Planets like those in the solar system are much more common than previously thought, scientists said on Sunday.

As many as 62 percent of the stars similar to our sun could be orbited by planets, a far-higher percentage than scientists had previously theorized, according to researchers at the Los Angeles- based Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the University of Arizona.

Arizona researcher Michael Meyer and his colleagues at JPL came to the conclusion by analyzing the dust surrounding stars through the NASA Spitzer Space telescope, which orbits the earth.

Several new scientific theories account for the amount of orbiting material that the scientists have just found, Meyers said.

This leads to his estimates that between 20 and 60 percent of sun-like stars have planets like Earth, Jupiter, Mars and the five other official stars orbiting the solar system.

The scientists believe that stars about 4.6 billion years old -- the proven age of our sun -- generate dust collisions that result in planets forming at about this stage of our solar system's life span.

Earth-like planets can't be spotted by telescopes yet, Meyer said, but may be spotted by the new Keppler telescope scheduled for launch by NASA next year.

Meyer and 13 co-authors had their findings published in the February issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.