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Language: en
and now for some final thoughts on the
search for planets for the longest while
we just assumed that other star systems
in the galaxy would look just like ours
a few small rocky planets near the host
star some larger gas rich ones farther
away and perhaps a swarm of comets and
asteroids to round out the family turns
out none of the nearly 300 star systems
in our catalogs looks anything like ours
most have giant gas planets orbiting
relatively close to their host star
which would gravitationally disrupt any
smaller rocky ones nearby of course the
search methods today are more likely to
find these kinds of star systems so we
shouldn't jump to conclusions just as
your lost car keys could be anywhere in
the street but you're more likely to
find them under the lamppost since
that's where the most light is the
search continues for rocky planets at
the right Goldilocks distance from their
host star where water remains in its
liquid phase we care about them because
we're driven by the search for life as
we know it and by the prospect of
finding life as intelligent as we are
but what about the search for life as we
don't know it just because earth is good
for us and just because we call
ourselves intelligent doesn't require
that alien life prefers rocky planets or
would even judge us to be as intelligent
relative to themselves just a call for
an open mind on the frontier cosmic
discovery and that is the cosmic
perspective
you