Re: OT: Extrasolar planets discovered directly
 

Think about it for a minute:

Assume there are 10 billion galaxies in the universe (a quite conservative estimate). Assume that each of those galaxies have 50 billion stars each (again, this would be an average since I've heard estimates that the Milky Way alone contains 100 to 500 billion stars).

If those figures were anywhere near correct, that would mean there are 500,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 5 x 10 to the 20th power.

Now assume that about 1/4 of all stars have at least one planet (not sure on this figure at all). That means there's 125,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets in the universe, with 12,500,000 in the Milky Way. Now assume that only 1/100th of one percent of those planets are inhabitable as we define it. That still leaves 1250 inhabitable planets in the galaxy.

And you say there's no habitable planets out there....anywhere!?!?

Remember that a lack of evidence does not constitute evidence itself.

Re: OT: Extrasolar planets discovered directly
 

I saw a documentary a couple of months ago where someone presented his formula. It was along the lines of using the percentage of planets that could hold a livable atmosphere, and the percentage chance of intelligent life and the amount of time life will last before becoming extinct. I seem to recall the final amount was that there are 100,000 possible alien races in our galaxy.

Re: OT: Extrasolar planets discovered directly
 

The Drake Equation

Re: OT: Extrasolar planets discovered directly
 

/me gets a lawn chair, some pop and some sour cream and onion chips and sits back to watch the fireworks.

Re: OT: Extrasolar planets discovered directly
 

Indeed. I have the popcorn.

Re: OT: Extrasolar planets discovered directly
 

/me passes out some leftover Viking mead. And some root beer.

Re: OT: Extrasolar planets discovered directly
 

All I am saying is there is NO PROOF that any other life exsits out there. None what so ever. Nothing, zip ziltch, nodda......We can speculate all we want, but until they toss a dead alien, a real one mind you, onto the slab in front of multiple news crews and the US Government says its the real McCoy, then I will be a believer. Until then, I choose not to be grouped with those that society has deemed crap pot nut jobs, and full blown weirdo's, not say that any of you are such, but lets face it, society takes a dim view toward those who report having seen UFO's.

Re: OT: Extrasolar planets discovered directly
 

The Way I see it is there must be life out there in the Universe, due to one simple rational thought.

Did the Universe go through all the dam hassle of creating itself just so Only the Human Race could evolve? Billions of Years of creation, destruction, wonders and atrocities just so a bunch of monkeys could expirience a little rock. It's a bit Anti-Climatic in the grand scheme of thing's no?

Re: OT: Extrasolar planets discovered directly
 

Yes but if God doesn't exist (and for the record I'm just playing devils advocate, I do believe in God) then there is no reason for anything. The Universe didn't create itself for any reason. It just developed. There is no meaning to life or reason for existance. Mankind and animals and plants and single celled amoeba are just a product of biology which just happens to be a way that physics works, and that physics just happens to be the way things work. Nature doesn't care a bit what happens. It's not anti-climatic for the simple reason that there is no climax, the Universe is created by a physical event, it exists for a few billion years and then falls apart. We may well be the only life in the galaxy. Just because we, within the whole reach of existance, can think and recognise our own existance doesn't mean there must be other life forms. That said though, I think that the multiverse is so large probability would seem to show that if it happened here it can happen elsewhere. People talk of finding planets capable of producing life, but usually they are stuck only thinking of life as we know it....jim http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif. if there is a 1 in a billion chance of earth like life than there is another 1 in a billion chance for each of the other 999,999,999 possible forms of life perhaps. The end result of which may be that every planet in the multiverse has a form of life that developed and is natural for that planet.

Re: OT: Extrasolar planets discovered directly
 

Hehe, all valid points Randall.

Maybe i should use [sarcasm][/sarcasm] tags a lot more often http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif