Dr Boss estimates that Nasa's Kepler mission, due for launch in March, should begin finding some of these Earth-like planets within the next few years.

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This is easily enough to detect Jupiter-like planets around distant stars, and it should also be enough to detect smaller, Uranus-like planets around stars within the sun's stellar neighbourhood.

ECONOMIST: A roadmap for planet-hunting

By the time any change occurred, humans might even have generated technology that could speed up the Earth's rotation or transport us to other liveable planets within our galaxy.

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