A promising discovery for the future.

['Scaper94]

I'm finding this very interesting.

Spoiler Alert!

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists have estimated the first cosmic census of planets in our galaxy and the numbers are astronomical: at least 50 billion planets in the Milky Way.
At least 500 million of those planets are in the not-too-hot, not-too-cold zone where life could exist. The numbers were extrapolated from the early results of NASA's planet-hunting Kepler telescope.
Kepler science chief William Borucki says scientists took the number of planets they found in the first year of searching a small part of the night sky and then made an estimate on how likely stars are to have planets. Kepler spots planets as they pass between Earth and the star it orbits.
So far Kepler has found 1,235 candidate planets, with 54 in the Goldilocks zone, where life could possibly exist. Kepler's main mission is not to examine individual worlds, but give astronomers a sense of how many planets, especially potentially habitable ones, there are likely to be in our galaxy. They would use the one-four-hundredth of the night sky that Kepler is looking at and extrapolate from there.
Borucki and colleagues figured one of two stars has planets and one of 200 stars has planets in the habitable zone, announcing these ratios Saturday at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual conference in Washington. And that's a minimum because these stars can have more than one planet and Kepler has yet to get a long enough glimpse to see planets that are further out from the star, like Earth, Borucki said.
For example, if Kepler were 1,000 light years from Earth and looking at our sun and noticed Venus passing by, there's only a one-in-eight chance that Earth would also be seen, astronomers said.
To get the estimate for the total number of planets, scientists then took the frequency observed already and applied it to the number of stars in the Milky Way.
For many years scientists figured there were 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, but last year a Yale scientist figured the number was closer to 300 billion stars.
Either way it shows that Carl Sagan was right when he talked of billions and billions of worlds, said retired NASA astronomer Steve Maran, who praised the research but wasn't part of it.
And that's just our galaxy. Scientists figure there are 100 billion galaxies.
Borucki said the new calculations lead to worlds of questions about life elsewhere in the cosmos. "The next question is why haven't they visited us?"
And the answer? "I don't know," Borucki said

My answer: They could still be in their own version of the "Stone Age" or even still evolving. Maybe they have visited, and we don't know it. Maybe they're wondering the same thing we are. I think a better question would be "why haven't *we* visited *them*?"

[Devil's Advocate]

The reason we haven't visited them is pretty easy, our spaceships are too slow. Even just going to Alpha Centauri takes a long time.

[DrAwsm]

Indeed, our spaceships would take far too long to reach any of those planets. Although, it'd be a very neat idea to think. I think the most likely reason we haven't made (concrete) contact with other life forms is because our and their technology is still too primitive. There have been sightings of UFOs, yes, but they haven't lasted long enough or had enough witnesses to prove anything, really.

['Scaper94]

Yes, I realize that we don't have the technology to travel that far. I was just making the point that, just because there may be other life out there doesn't mean that they are far more advanced than us humans. It is possible that *we* could be the most advanced race in the galaxy.

[Claws of Death]

Woo! This'll be cool. Scaper brings up a good point- some of the other planets can be in the early stages of evolution. And they might not breathe oxygen either.

[cavebehr]

the others have visited here and think of this world as a motel 6 . one could stay there a night but you dont get any sleep cause you have to fight off the roaches all night.........

[Taeblewalker]

Originally Posted by 'Scaper94

Yes, I realize that we don't have the technology to travel that far. I was just making the point that, just because there may be other life out there doesn't mean that they are far more advanced than us humans. It is possible that *we* could be the most advanced race in the galaxy.

EXACTLY. That is what I have said all along. We could be the ones who first develop the technology to travel through hyperspace, and we could be the ones who help their stone age people build their pyramids, etc. Of course, our own pyramids were built by us, but no reason we can't help them out.

[Nukatha]

Well, lets drop our Stargates off and get going...

[Claws of Death]

Where's my warpspace drive when I need it?....

['Scaper94]

"That's no moon. It's a space station."

But CoD brings up a good point - other life forms could breath other gases, such as carbon or methane. Heck, they could be aquatic.

[DrAwsm]

Originally Posted by 'Scaper94

Yes, I realize that we don't have the technology to travel that far. I was just making the point that, just because there may be other life out there doesn't mean that they are far more advanced than us humans. It is possible that *we* could be the most advanced race in the galaxy.

I've never actually thought that we'd be the most advanced species in the galaxy. That's probably because I've always believed that UFOs were advanced spaceships. If memory serves right, I remember reading about people who would see a UFO one second, then it would fly off at incredible speeds the next. If we were the most advanced species in the galaxy, why haven't we had spaceships go that fast?

[Serenity]

If your premise is there are millions of inhabited worlds then the odds are against us being at the top of the technology scale.