> The number of Earth-like planets capable of supporting life is thought to exceed the number of grains of sand on our planet. I believe the popular statement

> The number of Earth-like planets capable of supporting life is thought to exceed the number of grains of sand on our planet. I believe the popular statement is more towards 'There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all beaches of earth.' Once you bring in inland sand deposits etc this would probably not be true given the estimate (I've read but there must be other) of stars to beach sand grains is fairly close given the scope. And as for planets, I'm not sure the ratio of 'earth like' planets to star ratio in the universe but would suspect this to be less than 1:1 given in the milky way this averages a less than 2 earth like planets for every 10 stars. It's such a great analogy. Its the closest as I can come to understanding the scale of the universe we live in.