What is this a "Top 10" list of?
1. Beta Canum Venaticorum
2. HD 10307
3. HD 211415
4. 18 Scorpii
5. 51 Pegasus
6. Epsilon Indi A
7. Epsilon Eridani
8. Omicron 2 Eridani
9. Alpha Centauri B
10. Tau Ceti
Answer:
Those stars that are the best candidates for having earth-like planets and/or extraterrestrial life.
The list was put together by Margaret Turnbull of the Carnegie Institute of Washington. (Read more about it at Alan Boyle's column here.) She thinks that these stars are good places to look for new planets and to listen for possible signals from other civilizations. And her list is apparently anything but arbitrary.
Turnbull's list serves as a device for targeting the search as well as focusing the imagination. She started out with a database of 19,000 stars surrounded by "habitable zones" where life could conceivably survive. Then she zeroed in on stable stars that were at least 3 billion years old, with masses no more than 1.5 times that of our own sun.
The stars also had to have at least 50 percent of the sun's iron content, because astronomers believe that stellar systems need a minimum of heavy elements in order for planets to form.
Sounds good enough for me. Turnbull also seems to like her work very much.
"These are places I'd want to live if God were to put our planet around another star," she explained.
Spoken like true, starry-eyed dreamer.
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