160 Billion! The New Estimate of Alien Planets in the Milky Way

160 Billion! The New Estimate of Alien Planets in the Milky Way

www.dailygalaxy.com

According to a fascinating new study a new study based on Kepler data on the average, each of the 100 billion or so stars in our galaxy hosts at least 1.6 planets, bringing the number of likely exo worlds to more than 160 billion. Recent research conclude that large numbers of these exoplanets are likely to be small, rocky Earth-like low-mass planets, which appear to be much more abundant than large ones.

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.universetoday.com

So with this estimate (and another I've linked above) we're getting to a point where it can be safely said that we cannot be alone in this universe. It would appear to be a statistical impossibility. The questions now become; have we been visited? Are we being visited now? Would we even know it if we were?

www.dailygalaxy.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

that theory is bs.....every star hey ....even the young just formed ones??...never deal in absolutes with the unknown......

this bs.......its all just alien disclosure foreplay....

peace

Originally posted by thePharaoh
that theory is bs.....every star hey

....even the young just formed ones??...never deal in absolutes with the unknown......

this bs.......its all just alien disclosure foreplay....

peace

edit on 12-1-2012 by thePharaoh because: (no reason given)

Ummm...

"on the average, each of the 100 billion or so stars in our galaxy hosts at least 1.6 planets,"

Whose dealing in absolutes here?

Originally posted by Triangulum

Originally posted by thePharaoh
that theory is bs.....every star hey

....even the young just formed ones??...never deal in absolutes with the unknown......

this bs.......its all just alien disclosure foreplay....

peace

edit on 12-1-2012 by thePharaoh because: (no reason given)

Ummm...

"on the average, each of the 100 billion or so stars in our galaxy hosts at least 1.6 planets,"

Whose dealing in absolutes here?

on the average...ok....but each star having 1.6 planets.....does this includes sattelites like moons?

still... just alien disclosure foreplay....

Wow the number is bigger then I had thought. I was think somewhere in the hundreds of millions, not hundreds of billions. Interesting that each solar system hold only about 1.6 planets though. That would mean our solar system SOL is pretty large system having nine planets. Interesting none the less. S&F

www.space.com...
www.space.com...

Some other good new space related news.

-SAP-

160 Billion seems like a very small estimate. I can see that as a "possible" cap to our galaxy, but as for the universe at large, that number should be in the trillions upon trillions upon billions.
We are the country bumpkins, we know nothing about what is out there, we barely know about our own corner of the galaxy. Much less about the various particles that exist that may effect our human shells in bad and good ways.
For those who think that aliens don't exist, the math states otherwise. There are other worlds out there, they may have life, and some may have intelligent life, and from those, possible star travelers.

It's great news but also a bit sad. If humanity were represented as 1 individual it would be sitting there for several centuries now with legs folded and the hands covering the eyes while rocking back and forth mumbling "There is no life in all of existence other than me, there is no life in all of existence other than me, there is no life in all of existence other than me". We should have acknowledged by now the universe is teeming with life, there are other species out there some of them might already be space faring.

If only someone charismatic would unite the different countries to work together, build spaceships and colonize other planets instead of leaders who seem to be bent on starting WW3 we could all live happily ever after or at least future generations would.

Originally posted by Skada
160 Billion seems like a very small estimate. I can see that as a "possible" cap to our galaxy, but as for the universe at large, that number should be in the trillions upon trillions upon billions.
We are the country bumpkins, we know nothing about what is out there, we barely know about our own corner of the galaxy. Much less about the various particles that exist that may effect our human shells in bad and good ways.
For those who think that aliens don't exist, the math states otherwise. There are other worlds out there, they may have life, and some may have intelligent life, and from those, possible star travelers.

"We barely know about our own corner of the galaxy"

It's worse than that, we barely know about our own planet, how much of the ocean has been mapped? 3-4%?

All the small rocky ones contain mysteries beyond your imaginations. There is no real estate left undeveloped.

Not that looking out in earth time 3D, clocked to our star, will we see much.

The universe is highly compartmentalized, with infinite channels.

If you program a bot to experience your day in 15 minutes, you disappear from his sight, and he appears slow mode or standing still.

There are infinite realms of time and frequency.

I bet there is life right outside our oun solar system, prolly in Alpha Centuri. Just my opinon we wouldn't have to look far I'm sure.

-SAP-

Originally posted by Dragonfly79
We should have acknowledged by now the universe is teeming with life, there are other species out there some of them might already be space faring.

We've acknowledged the statistical probability ever since the drake equation. The number of planets per star was one of the factors in the equation.

But we can't say we know it to be true until we know it to be true, can we? These numbers suggest high statistical probability, but they fall short of proof.

Originally posted by SloAnPainful
Wow the number is bigger then I had thought. I was think somewhere in the hundreds of millions, not hundreds of billions. Interesting that each solar system hold only about 1.6 planets though. That would mean our solar system SOL is pretty large system having nine planets.

We used to have 9 planets. Thanks to Neil Tyson, we now have only 8! He was a vocal part of the group that got Pluto demoted to a lesser status. But still, 8 is more than 1.6, though 1.6 sounds a little low to me.

Billions And Trillions

As things stand, the question of extraterrestrial "life as we know it" is still unresolved. In the strictest sense, that literally means anything not on Earth can't be "life as we know it", because, by definition, we don't know about it.

If what we do know about life on our own planet is any example, it may take many different forms we don't expect, or can even imagine. The universe is a very big place, and we know very, very little about nearly all of it, so making absolute claims either way about extraterrestrial life is somewhat presumptuous.

But the numbers are big. Very big. This estimate of 160 billion exoplanets is just for the Milky Way galaxy. Current estimates for the number of galaxies in the universe range from at least 100-200 billion to as many as 500 billion. We don't know for sure because we can't see them all, but even the lowest estimate is a very big number.

If we take the lowball estimate of 100 billion galaxies and apply the 160 billion exoplanet value to them, that would be 1.6 x 10^19 exoplanets, or 16 quintillion exoplanets.

But let's assume that estimate is too high, and that not all galaxies have planets in them. Let's say the estimate is too high by a factor of a million, which is a pretty generous allowance for error. That still leaves a conservative estimate of 16 trillion planets, which is a hell of a lot of planets.

The Meaning Of Life

We don't know for sure if there's life outside Earth, but what we know about life on Earth can be reasonably extrapolated. There is a possibility life here was "seeded" from somewhere else, perhaps by a comet, but let's assume that didn't happen (since that would assume life existed elsewhere in the first place) and that life on Earth originated here entirely on its own.

If we do that, then we are, by necessity, accepting that the potential for life exists in matter itself, since life could not, in isolation, originate on Earth if that were not the case. Put another way, to suggest that life originated here without matter inherently possessing the potential for producing life would be irrational, because life is composed of matter, functions in agreement with established principles of chemistry and physics, and no other means for producing life is known.

Carrying that forward, if we presume that the sort of matter found on Earth is also found elsewhere in the universe, then the potential for life originating elsewhere is also inherently there. A great deal of evidence gathered from astronomical analysis and physical examination of matter on Mars, the Moon, meteorites and asteroids supports this presumption.

Given our current understanding of how stars, solar systems and planets are formed and behave, there is no evidence indicating that the conditions we observe in our solar system and on our planet cannot exist elsewhere.

However, there is a substantial and growing body of evidence that such conditions can not only exist elsewhere, but do exist, and in great abundance.

Solips System

While that does not prove "life as we know it" exists elsewhere, it strongly suggests the possibility, and to declare it does not exist simply because we don't know that it does is not a position supported by science or reason.

We don't yet know for sure if "life as we know it" exists elsewhere or not, but based on what we do know, some form of life is far more likely to exist elsewhere than not.

Recent findings and ongoing research only reinforce that possibility, and increasingly refute unsupported assertions to the contrary.

My tuppence, Your Mileage May Vary.

The figure might as well me infinite planets. I doubt we would ever reach 99.99% of those places in space, let alone set foot on them.

reply to post by Majic

Yep well of course the big unknown in that is abiogenesis (if you go with the no seeding assumption).

Despite the Miller-Urey experiment and similar claims, I don't think we understand how abiogenesis really works and how likely or unlikely it is. But I pretty much agree with what you said.

One thing I'd note is that even if life is common, intelligent life may not be, if Earth is any example. For the vast majority of Earth's existence there was life, but none of it could build radio telescopes, etc, until very recently. And there's no evidence the dinosaurs built radio telescopes either so as many millions of years as they lived and evolved, intelligence did not seem to be an inevitable path of evolution. I suspect life is probably commonplace, but intelligent life, maybe not.

La Vida Locus

reply to post by Arbitrageur

Granted, humans have so far been unable to produce life from inorganic matter, suggesting such origination is not as common or spontaneous as I may seem to posit. And lest I misrepresent myself, I don't think it is common, or we would see it occur more often and on a more spontaneous basis.

The genetic and fossil evidence available to us points toward a common origin for all life on Earth which, considering its significant diversity, is remarkable. This suggests that whatever the cause, once life becomes established, it tends to be self-sustaining, adaptive and tenacious, despite extensive periods of extreme and hostile conditions such as those seen in the long epochs uncovered by paleontology and geology.

Who knows? Maybe life requires the "spark" of a mystical being or force of a kind unknown to the current body of science. Let's assume so. But if that is the case, then it's still unlikely that such an agent is unique to this planet.

Whatever the cause may be, life happened here.

Loaded Dice

While Earth can be considered unique in all the universe, and it is possible that this is indeed the only place where life has occurred or can occur, the discoveries of sugars and amino acids in nebulae and on comets indicate that at least some of the components needed for life are widespread and likely to exist in every galaxy.

The Miller–Urey experiment has recently been found to have produced at least twenty different amino acids, meaning that although life itself hasn't been generated in a laboratory, synthesis of all the amino acids necessary for life has been achieved under relatively straightforward and reproducible conditions.

Add to that the growing possibility that there are potentially billions (or at least millions) of earth-like planets capable of hosting such conditions, and the odds of life existing elsewhere increase dramatically.

Admittedly, what we currently know is still quite speculative, tentative and potentially wrong, but the overall trend of new discoveries points toward a greater likelihood of extraterrestrial life than lesser.

And that is tantalizing in itself.


(Edited to add...)


Intelligence Quotient

I have a bad habit of posting massive walls of text, and have been trying to behave myself, but I can't resist responding to your comment on intelligent life.

The nature of intelligence is somewhat debatable, but it is arguable that life as we know it is itself an expression of intelligence. If the current body of genetic and fossil evidence is any guide, life inherently replicates, adapts to changes and increases in complexity over time.

These characteristics are fundamental to the nature of life, and are what have ultimately given rise to a huge variety of intelligent species. Humans are, after all, not the only intelligent life on this planet.

All members of the animal kingdom (and actually the plant kingdom as well) exhibit intelligence to some degree or another. It is, in fact, so widespread that intelligence can reasonably be considered inseparable from life.

Without it, adaptation and ultimately survival are not possible, making intelligence a naturally selected trait.

If we apply what we know about the evolution of life on Earth to other planets, we find that not only is intelligence possible, it is actually much more likely than survival in its absence. Thus we can reasonably expect that if life is found elsewhere, it will be intelligent.

How intelligent is an open question, but given that intelligence correlates with adaptability and success of species on Earth and develops in greater measure over time, it's a fair bet that the longer life has existed on other planets, the more likely it has given rise to higher forms of intelligence.

Or not -- but if it hasn't, that ain't much of a life.

Simply more statistical evidence leaning towards the ET hypothesis. For people to stand and vehemently deny such existence of other beings even in light of these numbers is pure lunacy. It is increasingly obvious as the days go by just how little we as a species understand. The distance between us and the furthest point conceivable steadily grows.

the only proof I ever needed was to look in the mirror, see myself, walk outside, see the planet, look at the sky, see a star, look at wikipedia, read what a galaxy is, learn theres 200 billion of those in observation, 100 billion stars+ in 1 galaxy

if you think we are the only ones, you are STUPID.

Isn't it about time that we just proclaim ' Of course there must be life outside of earth' ?

Life exists outside of Earth. That's a fact.

I can say this because it is true. Anyone stupid enough to think it doesn't exist because we haven't got proof is a person who needs to stop everything they are doing and sit down. Take a few minutes to think outside of what they accept.

It's impossible for life not to exist elsewhere, 100% impossible.

Really sit down and think about it. For every blade of grass you've ever seen in your entire life, there's a planet. Think about it. Do you really need proof ?

Originally posted by thePharaoh
that theory is bs.....every star hey

....even the young just formed ones??...never deal in absolutes with the unknown......

this bs.......its all just alien disclosure foreplay....

peace

edit on 12-1-2012 by thePharaoh because: (no reason given)

Are you that arrogant to even think this?
I bet if you were alove a few hundred years ago, you'd say its utter BS that the Earth is round