A Big Bump for Drake

Sunday, September 10, 2006

The Drake Equation just got a big bump.

In the last fifteen or so years astronomers have discovered over 150 extrasolar planets. That is, planets orbiting stars other than our Sun. And enough have been found to bolster the notion that planets are very common things in the universe. Seemingly that would bode well for the likelihood of finding life outside our solar system.

The problem has been that most of these extrasolar planets have been Jupiter sized or larger, and worse they've been Jupiter sized and in elliptical orbits. The theory had been that the kind of planets we'd expect to find life on (Earth like planets) couldn't exist when you have a Jupiter sized behemoth careening through your solar system every few years. Actually if your Jupiter is in a big elliptical orbit you still probably won't have Earth like planets, but the notion had also been that close in Jupiters would also disrupt Earths.

A recent model, however, has shown that this might not be the case. It's possible that Jupiters are actually life friendly, and that would mean that many of the very systems we've discovered so far could possibly have Earth like planets in them. Moreover it greatly widens the pool of solar systems in the galaxy (and universe) which might contain Earths.

Here's the article I read:

Universe Today