> The results reveal that 86.6% of the surveyed astrobiologists responded either “agree” or “strongly agree” that it’s likely that extraterrestrial life (of at

> The results reveal that 86.6% of the surveyed astrobiologists responded either “agree” or “strongly agree” that it’s likely that extraterrestrial life (of at least a basic kind) exists somewhere in the universe. Of all the disciplines, this is the least likely to respond "there's nothing out there" What surprised me is how solidly the non-astrobiologists agreed. I guess it's a corollary of the depth of time behind the Drake Equation: If you live or die by numbers, the sheer number of exoplanets now being found, and their range of sizes acts as confirmation planetary systems are common, and given the "astronomical" numbers of stars in the universe, and therefore the smaller, but still huge number of planets, and in turn the number which would occupy the goldilocks zone, and thus support all 3 phases of water existing is .. well it's big. How big? Its a guess. But given that big number, and how self-assembly works at scale if complex molecules can come into existence, the numbers take you there. A planet which is in the right zone, and can be bombarded with water bearing comets, and has complex elements in suspension, and thermal and solar energy, is going to have some self assembly happening. If membranes emerge, and something in the role of RNA/DNA, it's done. I remain skeptical of any directed information flow coming from any intelligence out there. I don't discount radiative leakage, we're sending it, seems reasonable to assume there will be more, but extracting useful information beyond the existence proof from it may be too hard.