On the “Galactic Habitable Zone”

The concept of Galactic Habitable Zone (GHZ) was introduced a few years ago as an extension of the much older concept of Circumstellar Habitable Zone. However, the physical processes underlying the former concept are hard to identify and even harder to quantify. That difficulty does not allow us, at present, to draw any significant conclusions about the extent of the GHZ: it may well be that the entire Milky Way disk is suitable for complex life.