wwarnout t1_jb2fe2b wrote on March 5, 2023 at 10:35 PM

Reply to comment by Swanson11isaque in what do you think chance of life out of earth exists? by n-o-b-i-t-a

> 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000

That number (10^39) is about a hundred million billion too high - give or take a factor of 100.

Still, a reasonable estimate of stars (and, given an average of one planet per star, about the same number of planets) is about 10^22. It is almost inconceivable that earth is the only place with life.

Also, the first life could not have formed immediately after the Big Bang, because the only elements then were hydrogen and helium. These two formed the first stars, and after a few hundred million years, the larger ones could have exploded, forging the other elements that are necessary for life.

Swanson11isaque t1_jb2xic6 wrote on March 6, 2023 at 12:54 AM

I thought they estimated it was around 1 with 42 zeros after? And yes there was time when life may not have been able to form but let’s just say even 25% of the time it’s been habitable. That’s over 4 billions years. 4 billion. That’s a shit load of years in a whole lot of places that have had life.