Astronomer puts odds on extraterrestrial life existing: 'Universe teeming with life ... the favored bet'
https://www.foxnews.com/science/astronomer-puts-odds-extraterrestrial-life-existing

Despite no clear-cut evidence, mankind has wondered for eons whether we're alone in the universe. One astronomer, however, is almost sure that extraterrestrial life exists.

In a new study, Columbia University astronomer David Kipping used the Bayesian model to determine the odds that life should exist on Earth. He found the odds are 9:1 or higher, despite scientists still not clearly understanding "how life occurred" on the planet, even if it's widely accepted life started billions of years ago.

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New study estimates the odds of life and intelligence emerging beyond our planet
https://phys.org/news/2020-05-odds-life-intelligence-emerging-planet.html

Humans have been wondering whether we alone in the universe since antiquity.

We know from the geological record that life started relatively quickly, as soon our planet's environment was stable enough to support it. We also know that the first multicellular organism, which eventually produced today's technological civilization, took far longer to evolve, approximately 4 billion years.

But despite knowing when life first appeared on Earth, scientists still do not understand how life occurred, which has important implications for the likelihood of finding life elsewhere in the universe.

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21 years ago, there were almost no known exoplanets.
However the first exoplanet discovery may have occurred but not been recognised in 1917 https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6991

In the last 21 years a lot has changed https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/alien-worlds/historic-timeline/

SETI@home is refining and focusing the search, and hopefully we will resume in a few years by looking in the more likely places.

As I have ranted before--in order to answer the question of how prevalent intelligent life is (like us)--we need to write down the conditions necessary and sufficient for life to start and evolve. We would base this on what we have here on Earth. Then as we are able to survey more and more planets we need to apply simple statistics for the joint probability that all of these conditions exist based on the attributes of the ones we surveyed.

I think that we pretty much know HOW life got started--what we may not know is why life or even viruses replicates and evolves toward sentience.

An illuminating glimpse at the obvious. Most of us probably believe that given all the conditions that exist here on Earth--life will arise and evolve spontaneously. I will bet you that even the Pope believes this to be true.

Maybe this planet, Lynn, for rather the planet instead, because we could make the Earth just an oasis for such.

Here the Drake equation should go by only an Equation still for such, when only that of name, because here Statistics came up with me, for just an alternative.

Supposedly ideal conditions should also make for life possible, for only the preset it still could be, when not any hostile either.

Here I know this to be that of the habitable zone for such, for also the Circumstellar habitable zone it could be as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumstellar_habitable_zone

Only just down to Earth it could be still, for only knowledge for such, always the guess we could make, when only sailing instead.

Dr. David Kipping, an astronomer at Columbia University, using modern statistical methods, calculated 40 percent odds of intelligent life on an Earth-like world. Kepler Space Telescope data was extrapolated to reveal the probability of up to 40 billion such planets in our galaxy. That makes for some 16 billion civilizations. He used concrete evidence of what we know about how and when intelligent life developed on this planet to reach his conclusion.

40 billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy--sheer nonsense. Lets wait until we find at least one that resembles our Planet.
I claim there are 5 maybe--no prove me wrong !

If there were that many, we would have heard a bunch of them by now !!

40 billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy...

If there were that many, we would have heard a bunch of them by now !!

We may be the first for our galaxy...

Or we may be enjoying a quiet eon...

Space is vast. Time even more so!


Keep searchin'!
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

While I was looking at the history of exoplanet discovery, I found this article https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/who-really-discovered-the-first-exoplanet/

In 1979, Gordon Walker and a few colleagues at the University of British Columbia began searching for planets. He was the world’s preeminent authority in precise Doppler observations. He designed his survey on the premise that all planetary systems resemble the Solar System. The biggest signals—and, given the limitations of his equipment, the only signals he had any chance of detecting—would come from giant planets, similar to Jupiter, which takes 12 years to go around the sun. Which meant that Walker needed to commit to a very long-term project.

He also had to hope that Jupiter-like planets are common, because he was only able to monitor about 20 stars. To expand his search, he would need more support from the Telescope Time Allocation Committee, which was not forthcoming. Walker wrote later: “It is quite hard nowadays to realize the atmosphere of skepticism and indifference in the 1980s to proposed searches for [extrasolar] planets. Some people felt that such an undertaking was not even a legitimate part of astronomy.”

That sounds familiar to some of the hostility towards SETI research in the past

40 billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy--sheer nonsense. Lets wait until we find at least one that resembles our Planet.
I claim there are 5 maybe--no prove me wrong !

If there were that many, we would have heard a bunch of them by now !!

I'll defer to the expertise of scientists who specialize in the study of exoplanets, in deciding what is, or isn't 'sheer nonsense'. Please see the linked article. below, in support of the 40 billion figure.

https://www.npr.org/2013/11/05/243281814/study-says-40-billion-planets-in-our-galaxy-could-support-life

We are looking for Intelligence not single cell organisms

There may Life on Europa or Enceladus, but not Intelligent Life
https://www.space.com/15716-alien-life-search-solar-system.html

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Sir Arthur C Clarke 1917-2008

Thank you for the reference--I find it to be pure drivel. It appears they are not talking about intelligent life (human-like). At least it is not clear.
To be habitable in the sense of having developed sentient beings similar to ourselves a planet will need the following:
Near circular orbit
Goldylocks temperate zone
magnetic field
rocky structure
(Dry Land)
Abundant water
Stabilizing moon
Outer Gas giant
Gravity (Mass) in a narrow range
Ozone layer
Age of 4 to 5 billion years
Tides

And there are probably a few others such as axis tilt and non binary parent star although my other attribute requirements mar subsume these. A planet that had all of these attributes would score a "12" ,lets say, on my "Habitable Scale"

I ask: have we even found one planet that is just rocky, and the right size in a temperate zone. i.e a planet scoring 3 or 4 on my scale.

When we have a sufficient survey of say 30 or more stars and have been able to survey all of their planets then we can talk bout how many Earths are likely to be in our galaxy.
We should be very careful to define exactly what we mean when we say "habitable" or "Earth-like".

Over the years there have been a succession of supposedly learned astronomers that have predicted billions of civilizations in the galaxy--I find them all to be buffoons and I suspect that serious astronomers feel the same way about these showmen.

We consider ourselves civilized but have only been able to use audio transmissions off our planet for less than 200 years, video in the last 100.
With a timespan of 13-14 Billion years since creation/big bang, that is a really small timespan, now add in the spatial separation and time involved and even if 10,000 civilizations exist today we will not see evidence of them for thousands of years.

I am not a fan of advertising our existence.
Imagine the Maya or Aztecs sending a letter to the Queen of Portugal of their existence...

Z

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