Thanks to my friend Alex, I discovered these amazing Hubble photos today. I love the top photo of the aptly named Sombrero galaxy, which apparently has some 800 billion (yes, with a B) suns.
You don’t seriously think we’re alone, do you?
Yep, my name is on the moon. I admit it. I don’t actually carry the card, but I’ve been a Planetary Society member for about 10 years now.
Popularity: 5% [?]
May 9th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
For practical purposes, yes we are likley alone.
First, in all likelihood, our civilization will come and go before we could have any return communication from a civilization in another galaxy. The closest galaxy is 88,000 light-years close; not many people think that the likelihood of our civilization existing for 160,000 years is very high. (http://www.seds.org/messier/more/sagdeg.html)
In fact, that may also be true for intra-galaxy communication. You’ve got to multiply the number of stars by the % of the star’s lifetime where a civilization could exist (accounting for a nearby life-killing supernova every 50 million years or so). One astronomer guestimated that an any given time in the milky way, there is probably about one civilization. Over the life of the milky way, there will be hundreds of millions of civilizations come and go, but at this moment, we may be it.
So I’m going to quit looking out my window waiting for aliens to save me, and get back to work.