Simulations Suggest the Milky Way Is One of the Best Places for Life

Astrophysicists used EAGLE galaxy simulations to map galactic habitable zones and found the Milky Way, with the Sun on its outskirts, is among the friendliest environments for life. Smaller, denser galaxies are far more hazardous: over a billion years fewer than one star in a thousand in the Milky Way faces a life-annihilating event.

• EAGLE simulations cover hundreds of millions of light-years of a synthetic universe
• In the Milky Way fewer than 1 star in 1,000 faces a lethal catastrophe per billion years
• Small galaxies are too crowded and energetic for stable habitable conditions
• The study was published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society