Suitable Star Systems
An understanding of planetary habitability begins with stars. While bodies that are generally Earth-like may be plentiful, it is just as important that their larger system be agreeable to life. Under the auspices of SETI's Project Phoenix, scientists Margaret Turnbull and Jill Tarter developed the "HabCat" (or Catalogue of Habitable Stellar Systems) in 2002. The catalogue was formed by winnowing the nearly 120,000 stars of the larger Hipparcos Catalogue into a core group of 17,000 "HabStars," and the selection criteria that were used provide a good starting point for understanding which astrophysical factors are necessary to habitable planets.
Read more about this topic: Planetary Habitability
Famous quotes containing the words suitable, star and/or systems:
“Love, whose power youth feels, is not suitable for the elderly, just as little as anything that presupposes productivity. It is rare that productivity lasts through the years.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“I put the gold star up in the front window
beside the flag. Alterations is what I know
and what I did: hems, gussets and seams.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“The skylines lit up at dead of night, the air- conditioning systems cooling empty hotels in the desert and artificial light in the middle of the day all have something both demented and admirable about them. The mindless luxury of a rich civilization, and yet of a civilization perhaps as scared to see the lights go out as was the hunter in his primitive night.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)