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To: Red Badger

There is no life out there.

When I played with the numbers years past I got 0.000000000000852687% chance that life is at any given star (based on the Drake equation).

Not considering the ability to travel or communicate over such distances (makes it all sort of a moot point), just based on the probability of life, when you look at a spec in the sky at night and wonder, accept that there is only a 0.000000000000852687% chance that life is there.

Even if we offset that with the vast size of our galaxy (assume 200,000,000,000 stars), we are still just at a .l7% probability for the entire Milky Way. That’s .17%, as in 99.83% chance the answer is no.

Most of space is cold, a void, dark, and if you are near a star, or on a rock near it, it’s likely a very inhospitable place.


9 posted on 12/09/2020 10:49:46 AM PST by Red6
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To: Red6

Your math is correct as far as it goes, but the Milky Way is not the entire universe. If we consider your probability to be accurate and look at 1,000 galaxies of similar size as the Milky Way, the probability of no life drops to about 18%.

Of course any calculation based on the Drake equation is suspect. The equation is a product of multiple probabilities, not all of which are well-known. IIRC there is at least one that could be anywhere between zero and one, meaning you can obtain pretty much any value you want from the equation. For example we have no clue what fraction of planets that develop life will develop intelligence, what fraction of intelligent species will develop communication means that we can detect, or even the fraction of planets with suitable conditions that will actually develop life. The value of the Drake equation is the consideration of the things that must happen for us to make contact, not in any actual calculation of the likelihood of that contact actually happening.


13 posted on 12/09/2020 11:42:22 AM PST by stremba
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To: Red6

Somebody has to be ‘first’.............. why not US?................


14 posted on 12/09/2020 11:44:02 AM PST by Red Badger ( “The goal of socialism is communism.”... Vladimir Lenin)
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