The Nature of Inhabited Planets and their Inhabitants

The Nature of Inhabited Planets and their Inhabitants

Authors:

Simpson et al

Abstract:

Earth-like planets are expected to provide the greatest opportunity for the detection of life beyond the Solar System. This notion stems from an assumption that the Earth constitutes a simple random sample amongst inhabited planets. However, in the event that other intelligent species exist, our planet should not be considered a fair sample. Just as a person's country of origin is a biased sample among countries, so too their planet of origin is a biased sample among planets. The strength of this effect can be substantial: over 98% of the world's population live in a country larger than the median. Any variable which influences either the population size or birth rate is susceptible to selection bias. In the context of a simple model where the mean population density is invariant to planet size, we infer that an inhabited planet selected at random (such as our nearest neighbour) has a radius r less than 1.2 r_Earth (95% confidence bound). If the range of habitable radii is sufficiently broad, most inhabited planets are likely to be closer in size to Mars than the Earth. Furthermore, since population density is widely observed to decline with increasing body mass, we conclude that most intelligent species are expected to exceed 300kg. Primitive life-forms are a pre-requisite for advanced life, and so the planets which host them must trace at least the same volume of parameter space. Our conclusions are therefore not restricted to the search for intelligent life, but may be of significance when surveying exoplanets for atmospheric biomarkers.