There are billions of habitable planets in the Milky Way where aliens could be having their tea right now, according to a new six-year study.
"Our results show that planets orbiting around stars are more the rule than the exception. In a typical solar system approximately four planets have their orbits in the terrestrial zone, which is the distance from the star where you can find solid planets." said astronomer Uffe Gråe Jørgensen from the Niels Bohr Institute. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01...bitable_zones/ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ture10684.html
Yes Glen, but it should come as no surprise. The models for galaxy, star creation etc. make planet forming a natural process. It just needed the right tools, the technology needed to find these planets has only recently become available, and the right minds to use them.
I was always disappointed with Carl Sagan’s (one of my heroes) use of the Drake equation, 7 terms all wet finger in the air stuff. Totally meaningless, or at least open to errors of 7 orders of magnitude. I believed it weakened his argument when a logical approach based on how the universe was made would have been more effective – not to most TV watching Americans with their 2 minute attention span though I guess.
If probability is to be used then the key one in my view is that put forward by biologists and others about the probability of an amino acid forming by accident.
Unfortunately the hesitancy to accept that there may be a host of planets with life has been instilled in mans psyche by hundreds of years of religious claptrap and mans own over-inflated and xenophobic egos.
I think the Drake equation is often misunderstood. I was not an attempt to seriously define the probabilities of life or civilisation elsewhere, but to define what we need to know to make that estimate, and to show that even if the odds are large against any one term in the equation that the sheer size of the universe and the number of stars still leaves a very real probability of life.
Awesome news! It seems intuitive that planets and planet formation would be abundant, but it's good to se it backed up by facts.
And funny to hear that my old lecturer Uffe Gråe Jørgensen is behind the study. He used to teach Astronomy at the Niels Bohr Institute (Part of the University of Copenhagen) - I don't know if he still does though.
Steve, I have never seen on iceinspace, a person who represents his Avitar more than the person who made the comment you Highlighted.
