Matteo Cantiello edited temp.tex  about 10 years ago

Commit id: e1295dd2b52373251c7e8f15fce9bbb52242fb9a

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%To put it in the words of W. Borucki, Principal Investigator of the KEPLER satellite: "When you wish upon a star, you %are wishing upon a star with planets".      This is fascinating, but still it does not tell much about the likelihood of extraterrestrial life. Planets like Jupiter or Mercury are not expected to host life due to their extreme surface conditions. This could well be the rule in the Universe, with Earth being just a lucky shot of nature. The question is then how common are planets that can likely support biological life.  And here is where it gets very interesting, as just recently we learned that Earth-like planets are indeed very common. Statistically speaking at least 1 in 5 planets around Sun-like stars could potentially support life \cite{Petigura_Howard_Marcy_2013}. And Sun-like stars are extremely common, resulting in about 10 billion habitable planets just in the Galaxy, with the closest possibly "just" 12 light years away.\\   %$n_e \approx$ 0.2