A Quote by Frank Drake

The story seems to be that almost every star has a planetary system... and, also, the definition of 'habitable zone' has expanded. In our system, it used to be that only Mars and Earth were potentially habitable. Now we've got an ocean on Europa... Titan.

Frank Drake

Quote Topics

Almost Also Definition Earth Every Got Habitable Mars Now Ocean Only Our Planetary Potentially Seems Star Story System Used Used To Be Were Zone

Quote Author

Frank Drake
American - Scientist
Born: May 28, 1930

In days gone by, scientists would speak solemnly about our solar system's 'habitable zone' - a theoretical region extending from Venus to Mars, but perhaps not encompassing either, where a planet would be the right temperature to have liquid water on its surface.

Seth Shostak

I'd love to go into space again if there were a mission to Mars. I'd also love to go to a completely different planetary system, out of our solar system.

Mae Jemison

The chemical compounds are comparable to a system of planets in that the atoms are held together by chemical affinity. They may be more or less numerous, simple or complex in composition, and in the constitution of the materials, they play the same role as Mars and Venus do in our planetary system, or the compound members such as our earth with its moon, or Jupiter with its satellites... If in such a system a particle is replaced by one of different character, the equilibrium can persist, and then the new compound will exhibit properties similar to those shown by the original substance.

Jean-Baptiste Dumas

If you think the ocean isn't important, imagine Earth without it. Mars comes to mind. No ocean, no life support system.

Sylvia Earle

Titan is the one place in our solar system whose geographical and atmospheric diversity and complexity are rivaled only by the Earth's. It's very Earth-like, but it's also very different, which means we have a lot to learn as well as a prayer of understanding what we find.

Carolyn Porco

It now appears that essentially every star has a planetary system. In the very beginning, we thought at best half.

Frank Drake

NASA, and all the other spacefaring nations of the world, have agreed to a set of 'planetary-protection' principles, aimed at preventing the accidental contamination of another habitable world with organisms from Earth.

David Grinspoon

Every observation that we make, every mission that we send to various places in the solar system is just taking us one step further to finding that truly habitable environment, a water-rich environment.

Heidi Hammel

A century ago, scientists believed there was only one obvious stomping ground for alien biology in our solar system: Mars. Because it was reminiscent of Earth, Mars was assumed to be chock-a-block with animate beings, and its putative inhabitants got a lot of column inches and screen time.

Seth Shostak

We are all . . . children of this universe. Not just Earth, or Mars, or this system, but the whole grand fireworks. And if we are interested in Mars at all, it is only because we wonder over our past and worry terribly about our possible future.

Ray Bradbury

Not that chance dominated events in the early Solar System, for scientific determinism was also functioning. But chance is an essential factor in all evolutionary events, and the birth and development of our planetary system were not exceptions.

Eric Chaisson

Men are weak now, and yet they transform the Earth's surface. In millions of years their might will increase to the extent that they will change the surface of the Earth, its oceans, the atmosphere, and themselves. They will control the climate and the Solar System just as they control the Earth. They will travel beyond the limits of our planetary system; they will reach other Suns, and use their fresh energy instead of the energy of their dying luminary.

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

We have one planet in our solar system that's habitable, and that's the Earth, and space travel can transform things back here for the better. First of all, by just having people go to space and look back on this fragile planet we live on. People have come back transformed and have done fantastic things.

Richard Branson

As far as Europa goes, Europa very likely has an ocean under its surface. In that regard, Europa and Enceladus are on equal par. But on Europa, the ocean is at least several kilometers under the surface, and the moon is bathed in an intense radiation field.

Carolyn Porco

What distinguishes the historical social system we are calling historical capitalism is that in this historical system capital came to be used (invested) in a very special way. It came to be used with the primary objective or intent of self-expansion. In this system, past accumulations were 'capital' only to the extend they were used to accumulate more of the same.