According to Yale Professor Meg Urry in a CNN column, “When Can We Talk to Aliens?” astronomers estimate that there may be as many as 40 billion habitable planets in the Milky Way Galaxy alone.
That’s not even taking other galaxies into consideration.
Space – it’s really friggin’ big.
Does this mean those planets have intelligent life on them? We don’t know. But Urry states:
Intelligent life that can communicate via radio waves with other intelligent life is less than 100 years old here on Earth.
So while planets that develop simple forms of life may be a dime a dozen, the number that have sentient beings with whom to converse — even assuming they evolved as humans did, with ears and spoken language, or eyes and written language — is likely to be tiny. And life that can use radio waves has existed on Earth for only 0.000002% of the planet’s history — 100 years out of 4.5 billion. If the half dozen or so rocky, Earth-like exoplanets now known are similar, the odds of discovering humanlike life on them are about the same as, well, winning your state lottery with one ticket.
Of course, if there are 40 billion Earth-like planets out there, the odds improve quite a bit. If they all have histories like the Earth’s, there might be 1,000 planets in the Milky Way that could support communicative beings.
– Meg Urry, “When Can We Talk to Aliens?” CNN. April 2015.
Let’s break this down.
40 billion habitable planets – and that’s just in our galaxy. However, habitability does not automatically mean life exists, or that intelligent life exists.
On top of that, if intelligent beings are out there, they will have had to have evolved to the point where they know how to communicate via radio waves in order for us to communicate with them. We’ve only figured that out in the past hundred years, the blink of an eye given the vast expanse of human history.
Take that concern into consideration – 1,000 planets that could possibly have beings as intelligent as we are (and let’s face it, Alien Jones loves to remind us that we’re not exactly setting the intelligence bar high)
My mind is blown. True, we have no idea of truly knowing that which we cannot confirm with our eyes.
However, statistically speaking…40 billion habitable planets…1,000 planets that could have possibly had a species that evolved to the point where they can communicate with technology of some kind.
There very well may be an alien on another planet that is a bizarro version of me, writing a blog that is only read by 3.5 readers, including an alien version of my Aunt Gertrude.
Amazing. Simply amazing.
If you’re reading this aliens, we come in peace. Let us learn from one another in the spirit of unity and harmony.
Also, please don’t invade our planet and eat our faces.
BOOKSHELF Q. BATTLER: Alien Jones, why didn’t you tell me there might be 1,000 planets with beings as smart as we are?
ALIEN JONES: Because they’re all smarter than you are. 1,000 planets and not one of them has reality television. Zing. Thank you. I’m here all week. Tip your waitresses. Good night everybody.
Sigil of House Jones
Bookshelf Battle 