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How many exoplanets would you say we have proven have no life? You imply 10^40 exoplanets are known to harbor no life. That is probably vastly more than the num
by spenczar5 3y ago
How many exoplanets would you say we have proven have no life? You imply 10^40 exoplanets are known to harbor no life. That is probably vastly more than the number of planets in the observable universe (something in the wide region of 10^20 to 10^25).
Something like 5,000 exoplanets have even been discovered. We can’t cross off many of those as certainly lacking life.
- superposeur 3y agoI’m certainly not claiming the actual probability is 10^-40 , only using this as an example consistent with an upper limit, which probability would imply life has not arisen a second time in the observable universe. Actually this is way overkill — as you say, even if the probability is as high as 10^-25, life on Earth is still probably the only instance in observable universe. The point is that we have no idea what this all important parameter is.
- spenczar5 3y agoOur upper limit is something like 10^-1. After all, there is life on earth! Our lower limit is 10^-25 or so. Why pick the lower limit? Existence of life on earth is extremely powerful evidence.
- superposeur 3y agoAh, but in my opinion we can't call 10^-25 a lower limit since, if life didn't occur in this collection of planets, we wouldn't be here asking the question in the first place!
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]