There may be hundreds of millions of habitable planets in the Milky Way, new study suggests

A rocky planet orbits a small, red star known as a red dwarf -- the most common type of star in the galaxy.

The sun is an ordinary star, but it's not the only kind of star out there. Most stars in our galaxy are M dwarfs (sometimes called red dwarfs), which are significantly smaller and redder than the sun — and many of them may have the potential to host life, new research shows. 

A new reanalysis of data from the planet-hunting Kepler mission shows that one-third of planets around M dwarfs may be suitable for life — meaning there are likely hundreds of millions of habitable planets in the Milky Way alone.