Where to Search For Life: Evidence from narrative sources with established predictive efficacy

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: Stanway, Elizabeth R
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Stanway, Elizabeth R
author_facet Stanway, Elizabeth R
contents The search for habitable planets, and even for ``Earth 2.0'', is a major driver in contemporary astronomy. However selecting target fields to prioritise for such searches presents a challenge. Here we establish a statistical analysis of the appearance of constellation names in science fiction magazines of the pulp era, evaluating the most commonly mentioned constellations and thus those which the science fiction community collectively identify as the most likely locations to find life. Given that the predictive power of science fiction is well established, we suggest that these locations might be prioritised by searches for extrasolar biospheres.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_28883
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Where to Search For Life: Evidence from narrative sources with established predictive efficacy
Stanway, Elizabeth R
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Physics Education
The search for habitable planets, and even for ``Earth 2.0'', is a major driver in contemporary astronomy. However selecting target fields to prioritise for such searches presents a challenge. Here we establish a statistical analysis of the appearance of constellation names in science fiction magazines of the pulp era, evaluating the most commonly mentioned constellations and thus those which the science fiction community collectively identify as the most likely locations to find life. Given that the predictive power of science fiction is well established, we suggest that these locations might be prioritised by searches for extrasolar biospheres.
title Where to Search For Life: Evidence from narrative sources with established predictive efficacy
topic Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Physics Education
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.28883