Chances That We’re the Only Life out there is Ten Billion Trillion to One

The Drake Equation is an argument of probability used to estimate how many intelligent, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations exist in the Milky Way galaxy besides us, and to a lesser extent, France. It’s pretty complicated, but involves trying to determine how many stars there are in the galaxy, how many of those stars have planets, and how many of those planets could potentially sustain life. It’s all conjecture because we have no idea what the rate of life on other planets is. But we do know that there are a mind-boggling amount of planets out there. Scientists have identified 1,284 exoplanets outwith our solar system, and extrapolate from those that there are 100 billion planets in our galaxy. Let’s say that 1% of those planets have life, and of those planets with life, 1% are smart enough to make wrist watches and missiles and stuff. That would be one billion civilizations.

The question is: when are we going to start receiving radio signals?

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