Steven Soter is a research associate in the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and scientist-in-residence at New York University, where he teaches on subjects ranging from life in the universe to geology and antiquity in the Mediterranean region. His research interests include planetary astronomy and geoarchaeology. He collaborated with Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan to create the acclaimed Cosmos television series in 1980.
In part one of this two-part essay, Soter explains how computer simulations suggest that planetary systems, including our own, contain as many planets as they can hold without becoming unstable. He says that observations of extrasolar systems should provide the ultimate test of this hypothesis.
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