In a new study, two astronomers have identified 1,004 sun-like stars that could all have habitable Earth-like planets in their orbits.

This appearance is called a transit; astronomers on Earth use these tiny drops in the brightness of other stars to identify planets passing in front of them.

All the stars identified in the study are within 326 light-years of Earth.

The scientists excluded stars for which we don't have reliable data, so there may be far more than the 1,004 nearby stars they found from which aliens could see Earth

Scientists have only observed planets around two of the stars on Kaltenegger and Pepper's list, but astronomers think that most stars have planets, and billions of stars in our galaxy have planets that could be habitable