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Project Progress

This is an exciting area of research, as graduate student Mike Gowanlock is making initial estimates of habitability in the Galaxy within. This research depends on numerous observational studies of supernovae, exoplanet searches, protoplanetary discs, the morphology of the Galaxy, advanced models of the chemical evolution of the Galaxy and dynamical simulations of planet formation. The investigation is showing that the inner Galaxy is the most conducive to complex life. After the publication of the first results, this was picked up with intense interest by the public:

• NASA’s Astrobiology magazine: http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/4231/living-in-the-galactic-danger-zone
• Astronomy Now- UK print magazine: http://www.astronomynow.com/
• Astrobites: http://astrobites.com/2011/07/14/finding-the-galactic-habitable-zone/
• MIT Technology Review: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26984/
• Daily galaxy: http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/12/cloud-heading-for-the-milky-ways-black-hole-hints-at-planet-formation-at-the-galactic-center.html
• Daily Galaxy: http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2012/01/habitable-dead-zones-of-the-milky-way-new-years-feature-a-2011-most-popular.html
• Yahoo News (Reprint of NASA Astrobiology article above)- http://ca.news.yahoo.com/habitable-planets-galaxys-danger-zone-224801899.html
• Australian Broadcasting Corporation- http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/07/13/3268574.htm

The work is continuing by extending the model to include the bulge of the Galaxy, as only the disk was modeled in previous work. Due to recent findings by Kepler, the model will be updated to reflect newer estimates of the metallicityplanet correlation, among other new observational studies.