HARROW: Astronomers from the University of Washington’s Virtual Planetary Laboratory say they’ve developed a formula to figure out which planets outside our solar system are most likely to contain life.
A lesser person might call that formula something catchy like the Alien Index, but these professionals call it the “Habitability Index for Transiting Planets,” and it will soon be published in the Astrophysical Journal.
“Basically, we’ve devised a way to take all the observational data that are available and develop a prioritization scheme,” said co-author Rory Barnes, “so that as we move into a time when there are hundreds of [planets to consider] available, we might be able to say, ‘OK, that’s the one we want to start with.’ ”
The Alien Index (we’re still hanging onto that phrase) takes the most important details of a planet that make it suitable for life, and turns it into quantifiable data. Those figures are then plugged into the formula, to see which planets are the best candidates.
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