Earth in the Zone

The Impossibly Habitable Planet

Athletes sometimes speak of "being in the zone," a mental state that makes physical exploits seem effortless to them, as they achieve personal bests. Planets too, must be "in the zone," in fact, in eight of them, if they hope to have any chance at the elusive prize: sustaining life.

It's All About Zoning

Two astrobiology research teams recently calculated that the number of habitable planets in the Milky Way Galaxy stands at over 40 billion.¹ But to reach this number, the researchers presumed that planetary systems everywhere in our galaxy are as abundantly endowed with planets as is our own solar neighborhood with its eight planets.