Who's out there?

[baldguy]

The Drake Equation :

N = N* fp ne fl fi fc fL

N* = the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy

fp = fraction of stars with planets around them

ne = number of planets per star ecologically able to sustain life

fl = fraction of those planets where life actually evolves

fi = the fraction of fl that evolves intelligent life

fc = the fraction of fi that communicates

fL = the fraction of the planet's life during which the communicating civilizations survives

There should be about 200 technoligical civilizations out there. But, they're too far away to talk to.

http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious/Topics/SETI/drake_equation.html

[EstimatedProphet]

1. You assume they would want to talk to us anyway

What if they try to make contact with us and they get a freeper?

[shraby]

2. What if they tried to contact us and

got an answering machine?

[jeff30997]

3. What if they land in Washington and...

Ask take me to your leader ? Imagine the embarrassment.

[LudwigVan]

4. Since I've gotten back into astronomy lately...

(I haven't been in an astronomy Nerd Phase since I was about nine)

To put things in perspective.

The Milky Way Galaxy is 100,000 light years in diameter.

The Sun is 27,000 light years away from the galaxy's center, which is believed to be located between the constellations of Ophiuchus and Sagittarius from our point of view. (Scorpius is also nearby.)

Deneb, one of the most distant stars we can actually see with the naked eye in the absence of light pollution, is 3,000 light years away, give or take.

Meaning only Hubble or Chandra is likely the only way we'll ever find a planet with Earth-like conditions. One could be 10,000 light years away if we're lucky.

Or there could be a different kind of life, not based on water and carbon, but on ammonia or silicon perhaps, on one of Jupiter or Saturn's moons, who knows....

(Why does this kind of stuff interest me so much?)

[More Than A Feeling]

5. If we were visited by intelligent life, I think we would know it

by the sound of their laughter.

[NYC]

8. If they are intelligent,

they would avoid us like the plague.

[greendog]

6. OK...

...what's the probability that the most powerful being on any of those other worlds is worse than the Crawford Cowboy?

[realisticphish]

7. It doesnt matter

the average population of the universe is zero. ask douglas adams :)


:hippie: The INcorrigible Democrat