[stevem]

Most of the planets in our own solar system, including Earth, have relatively circular orbits and are lined up along a plane that isn't tilted much from the sun's equator.

There seem to be an almost infinite number of variables that allow life to exist as we understand it. Every time someone adds a variable, we see a smaller percent of that potential hundred bazillion planets where anyone will discover ETs.

[SunkenCiv]

There’s been a puzzling amount of writing about how this planetary system is so much different from the extrasolar planetary systems detected so far — that’s clearly because the only detectable ones are the ones that look weird compared with ours.