A new study estimates that there could be 11,000 habitable planets within 100 parsecs of our Sun, the nearest being 20 parsecs away.
, the number of planets in our galaxy capable of supporting life – aka. “habitable.” At the time, astronomers were not yet certain other stars had systems of planets.
“The Drake equation amounts to a useful pedagogical summary of the factors that may affect the likelihood of detecting life-bearing worlds – and eventually technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilizations – around us today. But that likelihood and those factors depend, among other quantities, on the star formation and chemical enrichment history of the local Galactic disk, as well as on the timeline of the emergence of simple microbial and eventually complex life.
The Drake Equation, a mathematical formula for the probability of finding life or advanced civilizations in the Universe. Credit: University of Rochester Ultimately, Madau’s analysis showed that within 100 parsecs of the Sun, there may be as many as 10,000 rocky planets orbiting with their star’s HZs. He also found that the formation of TTPs near our Solar System was likely episodic, starting with a burst of star formation roughly 10-11 billion years ago, followed by another event that peaked about 5 billion years ago that produced the Solar System.
This artist’s impression shows the planet Proxima b orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
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