Are we alone in the universe? Are we arrogant enough to think that this is the only planet in the entire universe with life on it? With at least 100 billion stars just in the Milky Way galaxy, and with an estimated 200 billion other galaxies in the observable universe alone. A billion is a figure the human mind struggles to grasp; multiplying it by one hundred moves us from the realm of mathematics into the realm of the incomprehensible. For example, if you wanted to become a billionaire and started putting $100 into an account every single day of the year, it would take 27 thousand years to reach your goal. That is roughly 304 generations of descendants. Or another example is that it takes the average person 3 seconds to pronounce a number. To count to a billion it would take you over 95 years. All of that is just for a single billion, and we are talking 100’s of billions.
In a very unscientific observation, the chances of there being no other life is drastically less than the chances of there actually being life. Sure, attempting to design a formula to analyze the chances of there being life when we only have one example of it currently, does make it a little more difficult. The recent discover that tardigrades can survive in the vacuum of space should at least add a small percentage to the likelihood that there are also other things out there that can as well.
If we eliminate the star systems located near the galactic core and those at the very fringes of the outer rims, that still leaves an astronomically huge amount of other star systems. Going a little further, we could exclude systems that are too close to supernovas, neutron stars, pulsars, black holes, and other phenomena that we may not have even discovered yet. That still leaves billions of systems.
One of my favorite authors of all times, Douglas Adams, put it: “Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind boggling big it is. I mean you may think it’s a long was down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”
In my mind, there is simply no doubt that there is other life out there somewhere. But that is part of the problem. “Out there” could be a whole lot of different places, and those places could be unimaginable distances apart from one another.
Then there is the problem of defining life. We could still discover that there is life on Mars. Which on some levels would be extremely cool and interesting, but sadly the announcement of a Martian amoeba just would not hold the public attention.
Yet out there in some system, with just the right size star, the right type of star, with a planet at just the right distance from the star, with the right type of core and atmosphere, there is life just waiting for us to discover it someday. Perhaps our notions for the ideal conditions for life are totally wrong, and that different types of life could spring forth from a myriad of other various situations.
Though what we are really talking about is finding other advanced, intelligent life. Now, that could be a little more rare. There could be civilizations out there that have risen and fallen, and gone extinct. It could be interesting to find the possible treasure trove of artifacts that they could have left behind, as long as it doesn’t turn out to be something that will turnaround and wipe ourselves out with the very same technology. A good example of this type of scenario was in The Expanse series by authors James S. A. Corey. And yes, I did mean that as plural, if you did not already know, there are two different people working under one pen name, Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. The TV series is good, but this is a mandatory addition to anyone’s reading list.
