The Violent Environs of Early Planets
May 3 -- It's hard not to hope that ET is out there somewhere, waiting for us to discover clear evidence that we are not alone in the universe, but the news these days is a bit discouraging.
If there really is extraterrestrial intelligence somewhere beyond our planet, it doesn't seem to be all that anxious to be discovered. For decades now, scientists and ET enthusiasts have been keeping an ear open to the heavens, expecting to pick up some clue, perhaps a television program, or more likely a radio beacon used for interstellar navigation, that would tell us he, she or it is out there.
But so far, zilch. No deliberate effort to contact us. No slip of the tongue that we might overhear. Nothing.
The latest disappointment comes from scientists who suggest that if ET is out there, he may be having a tough time finding a suitable abode. The research suggests there may be far fewer places out there — planets like our Earth — that could harbor life than we had thought. If that's right, then legions of scientists have erred in telling us for years now that other planetary systems are probably common. And the odds of life existing elsewhere have taken a big hit.
'Planet Stoppers' Keep Numbers Down
These ideas tend to come and go with the rise and fall of tidal waves of information brought to us by such marvels as the Hubble Space Telescope, but over at Vanderbilt University, they are calling the latest finding a "planet stopper." That's tough talk indeed.
It turns out that "stellar nurseries" where new stars are formed are so violent that the dust needed to build planets may be blown away before planets can be formed. Only those new stars shielded from powerful interstellar winds by distance or other bodies would have a chance to form planets.
That means only about one star out of 10 would have any chance of forming a planetary system, according to C. Robert O'Dell, a research professor at Vanderbilt who has spent nearly 40 years studying that most famous of all stellar nurseries, the Orion Nebula.
