The Drake Equation needs a little tweaking

We really need to re-visit this.

With trillions of stars, many with planets, where is everyone?

Those in the know say that there are some 40 billion Earth-sized planets in habitable zones, yet intelligent life seems to be sparse in our Milky Way.

We will skip the obvious joke about the lack of intelligent life on this planet.

The Drake Equation needs to add a factor for continuous, rigorous mixing of life-sustaining oceans. A Luna sized moon in the orbital path of the planet would do it. A metal rock, undigested, actively moving around below the crust could mix oceans. A nearby neutron star circling another star could work too.

I’m sure there are numerous other scenarios that could be the mixologist that other, more knowledgeable humans can devise.

If the elements of life are common, what turns sludge into a multitude of species? Mixing is the key!

Let’s do some science:

Place some organics, minerals, water, maybe add some electricity simulating lightning strikes for jollies.

Put it all into a couple of Erlenmeyer flasks in a warm sunny place, one shaken to gently agitate the mixture.

Mix long enough (e.g., eons) and watch the mush round up into single-cell organisms!

Even the unmixed flask can generate cells, with additional time added. The static flask will be covered with dead cells and turn anaerobic and very stinky over a short period of time.

In any case, the only planet that we know that has active, festering life has a moon to mix and probably fend off many life-destroying asteroids.

Extrapolate this to a planet, maybe much like ours.

A moon, made by a Theia like collision, generates tides to mix things up. Add UV, lightning, vulcanism, and maybe a few asteroids, and life will slowly change from sludge to multi-cellular organisms. Once that point is attained, nothing can stop angiosperms, dinosaurs, and the furry and feathered things from evolving.

Again, where is everyone else? For the 40 Billion hot points of light, how many have:

(1) Worlds orbiting in the liquid water zone.

(2) Which have been hit with a Mars-sized planet

(3) AND spit off a 1000km wide piece of rock that stays in orbit?

Damn few, I would say, but if you want to find intelligent life around a star, look for a planet with a large rocky moon and ignore anything else that doesn’t fit those parameters.