"Given that the predictive power of science fiction is well established, we suggest that these locations might be prioritised by searches for extrasolar biospheres."
What an excellent paper by Elizabeth R Stanway from Warwick, never thoughts I'd see such an amazing collaboration between astronomy and digital humanities!
▶️ https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.28883
2/2

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.
I *love* that this was submitted to "April Unum"!
X'- D
( I studied Latin for 2 years in H.S. and just barely remember my numbers. :- )
@vicgrinberg well, all dystopic predictions of scifi ended up being the manual for the current techbros, so who knows maybe there is indeed predictive value in the constellation names 😅
NB: It's kinda hard to enjoy jokes when every day feels like being onboard the Ship of Fool's... 🥶