Intelligent civilisations are out there and there could be thousands of them, according to an Edinburgh scientist.
BBC, 5 Feb 2009 (link to full article)
The discovery of more than 330 planets outside our solar system in recent years has helped refine the number of life forms that are likely to exist.
The current research estimates that there are at least 361 intelligent civilisations in our Galaxy and possibly as many as 38,000.
The work is reported in the International Journal of Astrobiology.
Even with the higher of the two estimates, however, it is not very likely that contact could be established with alien worlds.
While researchers often come up with overall estimates of the likelihood of intelligent life in the universe, it is a process fraught with guesswork; recent guesses put the number anywhere between a million and less than one.
“It’s a process of quantifying our ignorance,” said Duncan Forgan, the University of Edinburgh researcher who carried out the work.
In his new approach, Mr Forgan simulated a galaxy much like our own, allowing it to develop solar systems based on what is now known from the existence of so-called exoplanets in our galactic neighbourhood.
These simulated alien worlds were then subjected to a number of different scenarios…
link to full article
