A Galaxy Full Of Life?

I have blogged before on the possibilities of life in our solar system and in the rest of the universe, well this week two stories claim that life is teeming in the universe.

First came the announcement by an Edinburgh scientist, Duncan Forgan, who said that he believed that there are at least 361 intelligent civilisations in our Galaxy and possibly as many as 38,000. His research simulated a galaxy like ours and then subjected them to differing hypotheses.

1. The first assumed that it is difficult for life to be formed but easy for it to evolve, and the results suggested there were 361 intelligent civilisations in the galaxy.


2. A second scenario assumed life was easily formed but struggled to develop intelligence. Under these conditions, 31,513 other forms of life were postulated as existing.


3. The final scenario examined the possibility that life could be passed from one planet to another during asteroid collisions - a popular theory for how life arose here on Earth.
   That approach gave a result of some 37,964 intelligent civilisations in existence.

This research had hardly been in the news for a day, when it was followed by another story in which Dr Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Science, said that there could be one hundred billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy, at a US conference. Based upon the limited numbers of planets found so far (300), Dr Boss has estimated that each Sun-like star has on average one "Earth-like" planet.

Most would likely to have simple life forms on them but obviously thousands could still have intelligent lifeforms and Dr Boss estimates that Nasa's Kepler mission, due for launch in March, should begin finding some of these Earth-like planets within the next few years.