Dear Carsten Nielsen:

"Carsten Nielsen" wrote in message
om...
Joseph Lazio wrote in message
SNIP

I ran across the following interesting comment in an abstract by
Sozzetti et al., "A Keck/HIRES Doppler Search for Planets Orbiting
Metal-Poor Dwarfs":

We present results from our ongoing spectroscopic search for giant
planets within 1 AU around a well-defined sample of metal-poor stars
[...]. However, about 7% of the stars in our sample exhibits
velocity
trends indicative of the existence of companions. [...]

In other words, be careful of selection effects!

I would not be surprised to find gas giants around metal-poor stars,
consisting of H and He.

But the more important terrestial planets won't be there.

And life won't be there either, with no 'metals' like carbon, iron
etc.

Life is nothing if not pervasive. I'd be really surprised if life were not
simply more efficient at working around "plenty". God help the metal-rich
object that might drift in from elsewhere...

David A. Smith