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Astronomers Estimate Milky Way May Have 100 Billion Alien Worlds
astroengine writes "Last year, using the exoplanets discovered by the Kepler space telescope as a guide, astronomers took a statistical stab at estimating the number of exoplanets that exist in our galaxy. They came up with at least 50 billion alien worlds. Today, astronomers from the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Md., and the PLANET (Probing Lensing Anomalies NETwork) collaboration have taken their own stab at the 'galactic exo-planetary estimate' and think there are at least 100 billion worlds knocking around the Milky Way."
I think he's trying to say that its not necessary to say alien worlds, just say worlds. He does kinda have a point, saying alien worlds makes it sound like we're not one of the 100 billion, which we are.
Alien life in the universe that we could encounter, depending on the climactic conditions, gravity and atmosphere would be very different from humans to say the least.
Not proven until we meet one.
They would not be all humanoid races that speak english....
Star Trek did not portray this.
Dolphins show amazing intelligence so it is easy to imagine..
No, it is not easy to imagine. Dolphins lack the dexterity to build a space ship. We may find out that any given species rarely (if ever) reach space unless they meet certain other criteria like opposable thumbs and originate from a planet where it's easy to start a fire. We don't know what all is involved in inspiring a species to leave the planet, just that it likely requires a complex series of events.
It's easy to jump to the conclusion that every planet that sports life will create a random space faring civilization species. However, to put things into a more realistic perspective, consider that this planet has created over a hundred million species of life and only one has intentionally gone into orbit.
Star Trek had humanoid aliens as standard...
No, they did not. The 'humanoid' races were explained by one species that seeded our area of the galaxy with similar genetic material. Elsewhere in the series, the Federation was accused of really only allowing humanoids to join.
We just don't know.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I would guess that Voyager is one of two of our satellites that are close to getting out of our solar system. Has Voyager been detecting tv and radio signals from Earth? Has there been a recent steep decline in the signal? I would not think so since we are still communicating with it so it can detect orders sent to it and we can still detect signals from it. I do not know how much power it has to transmit or receive but I would bet that it is less than some of our radio and television stations. I was just wondering where your source of declining signal strength came from.