Hi Guys

Dan wrote...

Far fewer when you factor in the need for a functioning magnetosphere, possibly even the requirement of a large moon. You mentioned that, but I couldn’t even find the word “moon” anywhere in the pdf report.

Me...

The article was about Jovians specifically. My probability for a large Moon is based on Robin Canup's work, which indicates that an Earth-Moon system forms with a likelihood of ~ 1/3, but the range of resulting inclinations that are friendly to complex life is about 1/4, hence ~ 0.08 of "earth-moon" systems come out right.

Dan...

Far more when you factor in that the study does not include Earth-sized moons around some of those Jupiter-sized habitable-zone planets -- and the giant might even be able to handle the magnetosphere need.
Dan

Me...

Agreed, but Jovians in stable earth-like orbits are pretty rare (about 5% of 8% of Sun-like stars) based on current results.

However if they have substantial moons - and I think they will - then they will host to candidates for Earth-like conditions. Can we then extrapolate from the known Jovian satellites?

Maybe. But we still don't have real theories of how the satellites formed. I suspect that the Jovian planets were on highly elliptical orbits and their moons formed through tidal interactions with the Sun. But that's just one idea.

Adam