First Habitable Exoplanet Could Be Discovered by May

“A new mathematical analysis predicts the first truly habitable exoplanet will show itself by early May 2011.
Well, more or less. “There is some wiggle room,” said Samuel Arbesman of the Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Science, lead author of a new paper posted online and to be published in PLoS ONE Oct. 4. His calculations predict a 50 percent probability that the first habitable exoplanet will be discovered in May 2011, a 66 percent chance by the end of 2013 and 75 percent chance by 2020.
“This is, as far as we can tell, right around the corner,” said exoplanet expert Greg Laughlin of the University of California, Santa Cruz, co-author of the paper.
Astronomers have found 490 planets outside our solar system to date, and those planets have been getting steadily smaller and more Earth-like. But none so far actually resemble Earth in its most important property: the ability to support life.
So Arbesman and Laughlin devised a mathematical way to define habitability using the techniques of scientometrics, the scientific study of science itself.”
Read more at Wired