"On a clear night the naked eye can see about 4,500 stars, so the astronomers say. The telescope of even a small observatory makes nearly 2,000,000 stars visible, and a modern reflecting telescope brings the light from thousands of millions more to the viewer - specks of light in the Milky Way. But in the colossal dimensions of the cosmos our stellar system is only a tiny part of an incomparably larger stellar system - of a cluster of Milky Ways, one might say, containing some twenty galaxies within a radius of 1,500,000 light years (1 light year = the distance traveled by light in a year, i.e., 186,000 * 60 * 60 * 24 * 365 miles). And even this vast number of stars is small in comparison with the many thousands of spiral nebulae disclosed by the electronic telescope."
-Erich Von Daniken
Astronomers estimate there are some 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in telescopic range. If we assume that a planetary system exists in 1 out of a thousand of those stars and speculate that 1 in 1000 of those systems contains a planet with the necessary conditions for life, we would get a figure of 10^14 that there is other intelligent life in space. If 1 in 1,000 of those has an atmosphere that can sustain life that brings the figure to 10^11. Assuming that 1 out of every thousand of these planets actually produced even a single life form then we can assume that there would be 100,000,000 other life forms in the vastness of space.
It boggles the mind to think that out of this entirely complex universe, there is one species of being on one rather insignificant planet that has such vanity as to assume that they are the most intelligent things in the cosmos.
-Erich Von Daniken
Astronomers estimate there are some 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in telescopic range. If we assume that a planetary system exists in 1 out of a thousand of those stars and speculate that 1 in 1000 of those systems contains a planet with the necessary conditions for life, we would get a figure of 10^14 that there is other intelligent life in space. If 1 in 1,000 of those has an atmosphere that can sustain life that brings the figure to 10^11. Assuming that 1 out of every thousand of these planets actually produced even a single life form then we can assume that there would be 100,000,000 other life forms in the vastness of space.
It boggles the mind to think that out of this entirely complex universe, there is one species of being on one rather insignificant planet that has such vanity as to assume that they are the most intelligent things in the cosmos.