Sep 27 2012: There is an astronomical number of planets in the universe. We are only now beginning to be able to "see" planets around other stars because of the vast distances that exist between us and them. How many there actually are is anyone's guess.
What we know about galaxies is that the ones we observe contain 200-400 billion stars each. Our solar system contains 8 planets. If we assume each star has 1 planet, and not more, and we average a galaxy to 300 billion stars we can deduce:
The Hubble Deep Field image contains 10,000 galaxies. At 2.5 arcminutes, that's roughly 1/2,000,000 of the visible universe in any direction. So if we multiply 3,000,000,000 x 10,000 x 2,000,000 we get 6 sextillion or 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets in the visible universe. It is likely much more than that.
None of these planets have intelligent life? Give me a break...
Sep 20 2012: If alien existence were to be disclosed, that would bring about a whole bunch of problems for the people who bring in hundreds of trillions of dollars each year in the energy business. Why? Civilizations way more advanced than us would not be using fossil fuels to power their ships across the galaxy. If humans were to get ahold of this technology and spread it out for everyday use, these huge energy companies would be obsolete.
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A comment on Conversation: Why doesn't the world pool together and disclose UFO and alien phenomenons?
What we know about galaxies is that the ones we observe contain 200-400 billion stars each. Our solar system contains 8 planets. If we assume each star has 1 planet, and not more, and we average a galaxy to 300 billion stars we can deduce:
The Hubble Deep Field image contains 10,000 galaxies. At 2.5 arcminutes, that's roughly 1/2,000,000 of the visible universe in any direction. So if we multiply 3,000,000,000 x 10,000 x 2,000,000 we get 6 sextillion or 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets in the visible universe. It is likely much more than that.
None of these planets have intelligent life? Give me a break...
A comment on Conversation: A lot of people put Extraterrestrial life into the same catagory as Big Foot or Loch ness Monster...As in Shii that doesn't exist.