katic (11/02/82)
In regard to menlo70!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!fortune!megatest!sun!decwrl!decvax!cca\ !WMARTIN@OFFICE-8@sri-unix's assertion: 1. Binary and multiple star systems are excluded, as they are unlikely to have habitable planets. (I can see logic in this; planets in such systems are likely to be gobbled up by one of the stars, or be in eccentric orbits which cause wide variations in heat, or just receive too much radiation from all those suns.) That would make "Fp" much less than "~1". Asimov had out an article in which he postulated that OUR system was a binary system with no decrease in the habitable zone! Consider the following, replace Saturn with a body of ~10-20 Jupiter masses. This is clearly large enough to be a sun yetr clearly small enough to NOT unduly affect Earth's orbit. While some binary systems may have no habitable zone, it is also possible that others have two! This would obviously change Fp, but I don't know how much. Any math loving astronomers out there wish to give us a guess?? katic (....!nsc!katic)