nuclear_blender t1_j6a4f8f wrote on January 28, 2023 at 9:17 PM

Reply to comment by pinkunicorn555 in What is your favorite exoplanet, and why? by Mister_Moho

There's a lot that goes into whether or not a life can harbor life. We don't know much about the composition of the planet, how old the solar system was before the planet developed, we don't know of it core or if it has a magnetic field. Not many people realize that jupiter is a major reason why life is supported on earth. Jupiter is so massive that it "catches" a lot of massive asteroids that could otherwise hit earth and cause a mass extinction event

Maidwell t1_j6a6eyt wrote on January 28, 2023 at 9:31 PM

This is the part I think a lot of people miss when they estimate life in the universe.

Our planetary system has been exceptionally stable thanks to a calm main sequence star and a giant planet as protector. Yet even with the ideal scenario, and single celled "life" starting on Earth almost immediately after the late heavy bombardment allowed, it still took nearly 4 BILLION years for multi-celled life to evolve and flourish in the Cambrian explosion 500 million years ago.