I've been reading and listened to "Astronomy Cast Ep. 75: Stellar Populations" tonight. And it is really not looking good for planets in the interior of GC's. I had known about Pop II and Pop I stars but the first generation Pop III supergiants are new to me. They are all gone and we have metals left from them. They would have left supernova remnants and though the eons, we would have contributions from planetary nebula-type events (but limited to lighter than iron) and an occasion nova.

But the closeness of the Pop II stars will clear the debris, both by wind and gravity interaction. Still with the time it takes for a cloud to leave the cluster, it seems it could condense into a planet or two. But it seems it would find a stable place to orbit, maybe not until it got to the parameter of the cluster, unless it was accelerated beyond escape velocity.

It seems the structure-of-the-cluster (that would make a good rap song!) is such that over time, there is a selection of big objects toward the center and smaller toward the outside. Maybe there are gas giants that orbit the cluster independently with chromosyntheic life on Europa-like moons. Can an earth-type planet support photosynthesis orbiting a white dwarf? The inhabitable zone of that system is going to be small and the spectum will be very different.

So, I am not as jazzed about this as I was, but I believe it is possible. Barely. And so hard to detect at this distance, this funding to look for them is not going to be an issue. Not when we are talking about turning off working Mars Rovers! Thanks, this has been fun and educational.

Still, there are sooooo many clusters with sooo many stars. "It would be such a waste of space".