Where to look for life?

UWAB astronomers Rory Barnes, Victoria Meadows, and research assistant Nicole Evans have co-authored a paper on how to prioritize targets in the search for life beyond our solar system. We know of over 3000 exoplanets now, and we’ll discover many more in the coming years. To quote Rory: “Now it’s as if Goldilocks has hundreds of bowls of porridge to choose from!” Which ones should we focus on precious telescope observing time on? A new metric called the “habitability index for transiting planets” ranks worlds according to a suite of properties that impact how life-friendly a planet is likely to be. Read more in this UW News release!