[paulchandler6]

Originally Posted by Chiltern Chris

I read a statistical analysis on this a couple of years ago. Obviously there were lots of assumptions made i.e. how many planets there are, how many of them are in the ‘goldilocks’ zone for life (as we know it), how many stars are suitable for life, the likelihood of life emerging even if everything was OK for life etc. At each stage they assumed that life is so unlikely that they included odds against each necessary stage as being between 1 and 10 billion against (depending on the variable being considered). This reckoned that due to the sheer number of planets and stars it is likely that there are at least 1 billion planets with life of some sort on them.

So whenever you look up, smile – you never know who’s watching, even if they won’t see the smile for thousands or even millions of years!

Chris

Wasnt it Carl Sagan that came up with a mathmatical equation that theorises that there would be at least a billion planets that could support life?

Paul