5,000,000 other Earths in The Milky Way Galaxy
One of those 5,000,000 is going to be the very first very earth-like planet to be discovered – THIS YEAR! That means science’s long held dream of sex with blue chicks is just around the corner.
So, let’s do the math. If only .00001 percent have intelligent life on them, that’s 50 planets that can come and rescue our sorry asses with their pyramid power. Either that or use us for food.
Unfortunately for the galaxy, some astrophysicists believe that WE may be the first technological civilization to have emerged here.
Although I use the word “civilization” somewhat loosely.
…or the “surviving” technological civilization.
If we’re the smartest species in the galaxy, I weep for the galaxy.
I see no reasons to think that even younger solar systems than ours could have evolved a species more intelligent than us and more technologically advanced. I think that the skepticism about any life forms evolving on other planets or, now the amended version of that skepticism, any life forms that have evolved are not as intelligent as us stems for most people from theological considerations about the uniqueness of human beings as the exclusive province of divine activity.
Actually, Dana, among astrophysicists I believe it stems from the numbers (how long it took from the origin of the universe to the development of third generation stars and heavier metals; how long it takes for planets to form around such stars, and how long it has taken for complex–intelligent–life to evolve on the one example we have, Earth).
Those numbers add up to a “guesstimate” that it would have probably (absent uniquely favorable circumstances) have taken at least 11 billion years since the Big Bang to evolve sentient carbon-based life, and possibly as much as 13 billion. Which places us in the ball park.
What we do not know is whether the evolution of life on earth was, relatively speaking, faster or slower than other places. So far exoplanets have not given us any real help in that regard. But if we assume that we are “average,” and that there are 100 billion planets in the galaxy, we have probably at least a 50% chance of being among the first (if not THE first) technic civilizations.
On the other hand, that means there is at least a 50% chance that we’re not. At any rate, I don’t think the speculation is driven by theology.
Maybe Boehners and Kardashians roamed the earth thousands of years ago. At least it explains how a guy from Ohio got so tan.