Official News page 8

REAL LIFE NEWS: HOW MANY ALIEN PLANETS ARE OUT THERE?

by Hazed

In Fed DataSpace, we know how many habitable planets there are in the Galaxy: it's 318. But what about in real life? Well, surely we have absolutely no way of knowing. Even though powerful telescopes are now capable of detecting planets orbiting other stars, we can't possible tell if they are inhabitable - or inhabited.

But a lack of facts has never stopped scientists from speculating, and one has just announced that there could be thousands of alien civilizations out there.

Duncan Forgan from the University of Edinburgh has reported in the International Journal of Astrobiology that there are at least 361 intelligent civilizations - and possibly as many as 38,000.

Well, that's a wide margin!

How did he come up with these highly improbable figures? Well, he did it using spreadsheets... no, not spreadsheets, but something just as prone to wishful thinking: simulations.

He simulated a galaxy much like our own, allowed it to developed solar systems based on what is now known from the existence of planets in other star systems in our galactic neighbourhood, and then subjected the resulting alien worlds to a number of difference scenarios.

The first assumed that it is difficult for life to be formed but easy for it evolved. This came up with the lower figure of 361 intelligent civilizations in the galaxy.

Another scenario assumed life formed easily but struggled to develop intelligence. This resulted in 31,513 civilizations.

His final effort assumed that life could pass from one planet to another during asteroid collisions. This is a popular theory for how life arose here on Earth. (It doesn't answer how the life arose elsewhere that was transported her, but that's another issue...) This simulation's result said 37,964 intelligent civilizations exist.

So, three guesses that tell us absolutely nothing about the real number of alien civilizations out there! I'd rather assume that the Fed DataSpace number is correct.

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