Mathematics – Logic
Scientific paper
May 2007
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007aas...210.6402l&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society Meeting 210, #64.02; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.173
Mathematics
Logic
Scientific paper
Prerequisites for complex life are not uniformly distributed in our Galaxy. These prerequisites include: Enough heavy elements to form terrestrial planets, sufficient time for biological evolution and an environment free of life-extinguishing supernovae. We have modelled the evolution of the Milky Way to trace the distribution in space and time of these prerequisites. We identify the Galactic Habitable Zone (GHZ) as an annular region between 7 and 9 kiloparsecs from the galactic centre that widens with time and is composed of stars that formed between 8 and 4 billion years ago. This zone of habitability is small in the sense that it encompasses less than 10% of the stars ever formed in the Milky Way.
We obtain an age distribution for the stars in the GHZ and thus an age distribution for the complex life that may inhabit our Galaxy. We find that 3/4 of the stars in the GHZ are older than the Earth and that their mean age is 1 Gyr older than the Earth.
I will discuss ways in which the luminosity and spectrum of electromagnetic radiation can affect the molecular evolution that we believe led to biogenesis.
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