Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2016
Volume 61, Number 6
Saturday–Tuesday, April 16–19, 2016; Salt Lake City, Utah
Session B7: Recent Discoveries in Planetary Science and Their Potential Impacts on Physics and SocietyInvited Undergraduate
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Sponsoring Units: FPS Room: 150G |
Saturday, April 16, 2016 10:45AM - 11:21AM |
B7.00001: Extraterrestrial life in light of recent planetary science Invited Speaker: Matthew Stanley Since at least the time of the Greeks, we have wondered whether the universe cares about us. Is the universe friendly to life, with fecund planets scattered through the heavens? Or is it indifferent, with our green globe a fluke among barren rocks? Modern scientists articulate this puzzle in the form of the anthropic principle, and try to quantify it with the Drake equation. Both seek to link the science we find in our corner of the universe to truly cosmological claims about life and the laws of nature. Until very recently, these questions have been accessible only to speculation. But the amazing progress in planetary science of the last two decades has finally given us an opportunity to begin to test these ideas. This paper will examine how our recent studies of planets within and beyond our solar system may help us grapple with the riddles of the anthropic principle and how life fits into a universe of natural laws. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, April 16, 2016 11:21AM - 11:57AM |
B7.00002: On The History and Future of Cosmic Planet Formation Invited Speaker: Peter Behroozi We combine constraints on galaxy formation histories with planet formation models, yielding the Earth-like and giant planet formation histories of the Milky Way and the Universe as a whole. In the Hubble Volume (10$^{13}$ Mpc$^3$), we expect there to be $\sim 10^{20}$ Earth-like and $\sim 10^{20}$ giant planets; our own galaxy is expected to host $\sim10^{9}$ and $\sim10^{10}$ Earth-like and giant planets, respectively. Proposed metallicity thresholds for planet formation do not significantly affect these numbers. However, the metallicity dependence for giant planets results in later typical formation times and larger host galaxies than for Earth-like planets. The Solar System formed at the median age for existing giant planets in the Milky Way, and consistent with past estimates, formed after 80\% of Earth-like planets. However, if existing gas within virialised dark matter haloes continues to collapse and form stars and planets, the Universe will form over 10 times more planets than currently exist. We show that this would imply at least a 92\% chance that we are not the only civilisation the Universe will ever have, independent of arguments involving the Drake Equation. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, April 16, 2016 11:57AM - 12:33PM |
B7.00003: tbd Invited Speaker: Lynnae Quick |
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