I wonder if there are any calculations that estimate the percentage of star systems with planets that potentially can support life?
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1$\begingroup$ Relevant? The Drake equation $\endgroup$– Dan PichelmanOct 12, 2017 at 16:57
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1$\begingroup$ Have you done research on the Drake equation? I know it goes all the way out to communicating civilizations, but potentially life-supporting planets are part of the calculation. There is no brief answer to this question, as we are still relatively new at the game of finding planets. $\endgroup$– called2voyage ♦Oct 12, 2017 at 16:57
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$\begingroup$ As a point of reference, check out how many potentially habitable planets there could be just within 100 light-years of us: space.stackexchange.com/questions/4062/… $\endgroup$– called2voyage ♦Oct 12, 2017 at 16:59
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$\begingroup$ Didn't Carl Sagan do something or present something on this?.. Yup, found this : mentalfloss.com/article/27835/… $\endgroup$– Solar MikeOct 12, 2017 at 17:19
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$\begingroup$ @Dan Pichelman, I didn't know about it, thanks. $\endgroup$– AstereaOct 12, 2017 at 20:40
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We don't have a good estimate of this yet. Our ability to detect planets around other stars is very limited, and biased toward finding very large planets in very close orbits around stars.
Drake's original estimate was that a star with planets would average between one and 5 planets capable of developing life, so the percentage would be quite high. Other estimates range as low as ~40%.
answered Oct 12, 2017 at 23:46
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$\begingroup$ And we don't know anything about the atmospheres of those planets, so their habitability isn't even a scientific question at the moment. $\endgroup$ Oct 13, 2017 at 11:09