From: mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us>
Subject: [WSFA] The most likely spots for life in the Milky Way
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Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2015 21:47:10 -0500
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Excerpt:
Our home galaxy isn\342\200\231t as hospitable to life as you might think. Cosmic
radiation, supernova explosions, and collisions with small galaxies make
much of the Milky Way too hellish for biology. But a detailed new
simulation locates quiet and fertile neighborhoods, including a surprising
locale: wispy streams of stars flung far beyond the main body of the Milky
Way.

To support life as we know it, planets must have liquid water and orbit in
the right place in their solar systems, not too close and not too far from
their star. Similarly, life will not emerge or survive for long near the
centers of galaxies. Here, the high density of stars means that at any
given time several could be exploding, frying off a planet\342\200\231s ozone layer
and exposing any surface life to deadly ultraviolet rays.

So in the new study, researchers led by physicist Duncan Forgan of the
University of St. Andrews in Fife, U.K., focused on the regions far from a
galaxy\342\200\231s center. They used computer simulations to model an entire Milky
Way\342\200\223like galaxy and its neighbors, the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies.
They then simulated the distribution of gas, stars, and planetary systems
within those whorls of stars. Finally, they allowed these galaxies to
evolve over billions of years, while mapping out their evolving habitable
zones. \342\200\234We\342\200\231re the first to look at how the history of galaxies affects
their habitability,\342\200\235 Forgan says.
--- end excerpt ---

<http://news.sciencemag.org/space/2015/12/most-likely-spots-life-milky-way>

And here I just thought you needed to listen for a live broadcast from the
bar to find Tatooine....

        mark