In “Aliens don’t need a moon like ours” (New Scientist, 13 November 2011), David Shiga informs us,
It seems planets don’t need a big satellite like Earth’s in order to support life, increasing the number on which life could exist.
We know of only one such planet and it does have a moon …
But a study now suggests moonless planets have been dismissed unfairly. “There could be a lot more habitable worlds out there,” says Jack Lissauer of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, who led the research.
Large moons are not required for a stable tilt and climate, agrees Darren Williams of Pennsylvania State University in Erie. In some circumstances, he adds, large moons can even be detrimental, depending on the arrangement of planets in a given system. “Every system is going to be different.”
It’s probably rude to point this out, but just now, only one system is genuinely different when it comes to harbouring life. And it does have a moon.
You’d think it would make more sense to look for what we know works.