Huygens, Christiaan (1629–1695)
Huygens was deeply involved in speculation about the existence of extraterrestrial life, a subject that dominates his Cosmotheoros, or New Conjectures Concerning the Planetary Worlds, Their Inhabitants and Productions, published posthumously in 1698. Huygens employs the same five arguments in favor of pluralism as Fontanelle had done in his hugely popular work, but reveals (not surprisingly) a greater command of late 17th century astronomical data. The evidence he marshals against life on the Moon is pertinent and almost decisive (see life on the Moon). However, he is less sure-footed when it comes to making inferences about the planets. He notes the excessive solar heat received by the inner planets, and the deficiency suffered by those lying beyond the Earth's orbit, but fails to explain how the supposed inhabitants of these worlds cope with the temperature extremes to which they are subject. Again, he notes the spots seen telescopically on Jupiter but then rashly assumes these are clouds of water vapor and, therefore, evidence of habitability. Concerning the possibility of extrasolar worlds and life, he writes:
Why then shall we not ... conclude that our Star has no better attendance than the others? So that what we allow'd the Planets, upon the account of our enjoying it, we must likewise grant to all those Planets that surround that prodigious number of Suns. They must have their plants and animals, nay and their rational creatures too, and those as great admirers, and as diligent observers of the heavens as ourselves ...He makes some creditable estimates of stellar distances based on a consideration of how far away the Sun would have to be to appear as bright as Sirius, and then uses these estimates to account for the failure to detect extrasolar worlds.
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