About this simulation by Anthony Francis Cernosek 11/18/2003
The year is 2160. There you are on the starship Enterprise, sitting in the captain's chair, gazing out at billions of distant stars. Your mission - to find alien life. You don't want to search blindly, so you've thought about your mission carefully...... You already know the location of 440 planetary systems in your sector - within a 64 light year radius. You also know that 17 planets in this sector are Earth-sized, and receive about the same stellar radiation. Your science officer is confident that these worlds have liquid water - a prerequisite for life. But surface conditions are unknown, so you'll have to go explore these Earth-sized worlds to find out more. Start simulation now! To learn more about this simulation, scroll down......	NASA photo of spiral galaxy M74
Astronomy has been my passion for 40 years. The big question "Are we alone?" was sparked by the dramatic events of 1995-96, when extrasolar planets were found orbiting nearby stars, and the Martian meteorite - ALH84001 - seemed to show evidence of fossil bacteria. (A claim that is still debated. ) This excitement led to several years of research, and an attempt to write a book on Bio-Astronomy. This simulation grew from that effort, and incorporates the latest scientific discoveries that I'm aware of. See "What is Bio-Astronomy?" The simulated starfield shows 4400 stars - the actual number within a 64 light year radius of Earth. Based on recent discoveries, 440 of those stars (one out of 10) probably have a planetary system - and that's a conservative estimate! In the simulation, these 440 (randomly generated) planetary systems are marked with a "+" sign. Each contains an unknown number of large, condensed bodies - planets or moons. Our own solar system has 9 planets and 7 large moons, but we've guessed that the average total is 4. That implies the existence of 1760 individual planets in our simulated starfield. Your challenge is to find and explore the Earth-sized worlds - which are most likely to have liquid surface water, and possible life of some kind. These worlds - with approximately Earth's mass, and receiving roughly the same stellar radiation - may represent 1% of all planets. (Explaining why requires a detailed review of planetary science, which I'll try to add later.) The typical starfield display will show about 17 Earth-sized planets marked "E". ( 17 =1760 * .01) Once you've clicked on the planet symbol "E" that you're interested in, the program randomly (but realistically, based on science) generates the age of the planet, the star type that it orbits, and other factors. Each Earth-sized world can fall into one of five "Earthlike planetary zones" , which gives each planet different conditions. The conditions on your chosen planet are displayed at the bottom of the screen. Now imagine walking on a typical world in one of these zones. Here's a drawing of each type...... Zone 1 - Hot Waterworlds Zone 2 - Cold Waterworlds Zone 3 - Hot Deserts Zone 4 - Cold Deserts Zone 5 - Truly Earthlike Start simulation now! © 2003 by Anthony Francis Cernosek