[HN Gopher] Protoplanetary Disks Are Smaller Than Expected
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       Protoplanetary Disks Are Smaller Than Expected
        
       Author : JPLeRouzic
       Score  : 28 points
       Date   : 2025-04-05 08:22 UTC (14 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.centauri-dreams.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.centauri-dreams.org)
        
       | pfdietz wrote:
       | Observational bias is interesting. For example, if you judge by
       | the stars visible to the naked eye, you get a very different
       | sense of the distribution of stellar masses than if you use a
       | telescope, because no class M main sequence stars will be
       | included (the brightest has apparent magnitude 6.7). The
       | intrinsically brightest stars, including many of the famously
       | named ones, are visible to great distances and so are very
       | overrepresented.
       | 
       | The most spectacular form of observational bias could be the
       | presence of life. The planet we are on will always have life
       | (because, we are here and we are life) regardless of how uncommon
       | life actually is in the universe.
        
         | vlovich123 wrote:
         | Similarly, life is so small that we have to actually travel
         | places multiple times to get a sense of if life exists there
         | and the scope of where we can travel is rather limited to parts
         | of our solar system. So it will seem like we're the only place
         | with life regardless of how common life is in the universe.
        
           | pfdietz wrote:
           | That's not the same thing at all.
        
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