Blog:2013-02-23: Extrasolar Milky-Way Terrestrial Planets
Exoplanets were in the news again, this time because of the publication (Dressing & Charbonneau, 2013) which estimates, based on the Kepler mission's data that there are 0.04 Goldi-locks planets per cool star - which translates to billions of such planets just in our Milky Way! I had the impression that there were few planets per star (despite Carl Sagan's calculations of terrestrial planet counts back in the 80s). Now there a billions of them! And, given that I am reading Vernor Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky", I immediately felt ever more like an aborigine on an island just light-years away from one or more exponentially advancing civilizations... Given this, I dedicated some time on Extra-Solar Goldilocks Planets related concepts.
Update Beliefs
- There are billions of Goldi-locks planets in the universe.
- We are likely not the only human-level intelligence, and they've likely been super-intelligent for millions of years.
- What we believe to be innovations are likely already invented elsewhere.
- But, there is a miniscule chance that this is not the case. so we must ensure that humanity does not self-destruct.
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