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How common are habitable planets?

Jack J. Lissauer

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The Earth is teeming with life, which occupies a diverse array of environments; other bodies in our Solar System offer fewer, if any, niches that are habitable by life as we know it. Nonetheless, astronomical studies suggest that many habitable planets may be present within our Galaxy.

One of the most basic questions that has been pondered by Natural Philosophers for many millennia concerns humanity's place in the Universe: are we alone? This question has been approached from many different viewpoints, and similar reasoning has led to widely diverse answers.