How many intelligent planetary civilizations exist in the universe,milky way galaxy and w/in 1000 light years?

Question

We all now know there are many planets in the universe...some of them most likely like our own...where life is abundant...on life harboring planets is intelligent life very rare? Would the inhabitats be humanoid in appearance or totally alien looking? Would they be more advanced than we are on average....possibly even achieving immortality?...or have I seen too many Star Trek Episodes?...lol Please explain your answer in detail. When do you think we will be capable of detecting or communicatings with such civilizations at the current rate of technological progress? Please be as freethinking and creative as possible...but try to include logic and fact and scientific explanation with your answer....

May peace (and the force) be with you all,

Answer 1

Within 1000 LY? Our Milky Way has (as Carl Sagan use to say) Billion and Billions of stars. If only 1% of those stars could support life and of those if only1% of those had intelligent life there would still be hundreds of millions of intelligent life forms.

As for advanced life forms I'd like to think we are about average, meaning that there are those who are more advanced and conversely those that are less advanced.

Having said that, communication is a different matter. We know that Dolphins have a large brain and we can hardly understand them (and we're on the same planet). Distance comes into play when communicating with interstellar beings. We have been sending radio waves into space for ... what... 75... 100 years. But only since 1936 have we had the capability to send strong detectable signals. Assume the same for our closest neighbour. Let us assume that since we have not heard from them that they are at least 70 LY away. Their signal might be on its way but how long have we actually been looking for that signal (20 years?) They are getting our signal from 1936, now. In 70 years we might get a message from them and then another 70 years for them to receive our response. The problem with communication like that is it takes 140 years to get an answer from your first question. By that time you may have solved it yourself, or things may have changed so much that the answer you receive is entirely irrelevant.

As for Immortality... that is more philosophical. If you believe that we turn to dust and become food for the worms and there is nothing else to it then... no they have not achieved immortality. The most advanced beings may have found ways to increase the life span to the point of verging on immortality. But for even them death would be an eventuality.
Of course if you believe that the soul (or spirit) that gives us "life" is immortal then we have achieved it already and so would other beings.

What they look like... wow... the imagination is the limit. Let say that they followed our evolutionary path but there was no giant rock to smash into their world and wipe out the dinosaurs. They may have evolved as an intelligent lizard. They would need warm climates and would have to warm up before becoming active. They might be strict carnivores or vegetarian. They could possess chameleon like properties both as a protective measure and as a hunting tool.
Maybe they are insectoids with many arms and legs and with exoskeletons and natural body armour. And they might be fast! Really fast!! (Ever seen a spider scamper across the floor think of how small it is and how much ground it covers in a short span of time).
We have even discovered some silicoid creatures in the deepest parts of our own oceans near "smokers" (volcanic vents on the sea floor). What if they were to rise to an intelligent life form they wouldn't need sunlight or plants or animals for food as they eat minerals. They could be very long lived and move very slowly (a message from them might come as a very slow transmission and go undetected for years because the modulation of the frequency might take hours [if not weeks or years] to change).

If there really is no other life out there what a waste of space!

Live long and prosper. (and may the force be with you.)

Answer 2

There is a sincerity in your trying to know something based on the media projections,which have been created by ordinary humancreatures out of shear imaginations.In total the entire human entitities lie in the plane of fractional part of the wholeness.
A part of the whole being can never comprehend the totality.Evenif you can make a toughened glass from CO2 in a lab using the available technology,still not able to maintain the form at ambient temperatures or study the contours and configurations of the planets in the constellationsby capturing the images of the entities through the latest technological tools you can never reach the TRUTH,because you being a part of something cannot be the wholeness as only the medium you look at becomes the master.Don't get tired of this answer if at all you are sincere.There are no alienbeings in any part of the cosmic universe,but the mightiest awareness module with infininite attributes is CERTAINLY IMMINENT.

Answer 3

Who knows? Atleast 130 planets right outside our solar system. How many contain life? Good question. Could only speculate. Check out SETI institute. Supposedly there is an equation for that. The only problem is many factors are unknown. Hence, the end result would be unknown.

Answer 4

"there are as much stars on our own galaxy alone as there are grains of sands in every beach on earth". so there are definitely life on other planets. the chances are they will look very different from us due to their adaptation to their own environment, we can also Jude by the fact that not a single species look similar to another from our own planets evolution, so how could two species evolve to the same identical feature when they are in two different planets.
it would be impossible to tell exactly how many civilizations exist because there are many planets in the universe that we don't even know about.
whether they are more intelligent than we are, we cant judge something we haven't even seen, but the chances are that they are not very much ahead of us because if they are how come they haven't communicated with us yet.

Answer 5

We the earthlings are the dumbest compared their technology.

After all these years in existance, we still know only 5 senses.

Their technology is millions of galaxies multiplied by millions of galaxies, comparatively ours is hardly a nanometer.

Answer 6

Okay, I would just say there must be at least some douzens in the 1000 light years you mention.

The sad thing, lets say we would send them a message "hey, we are here", they will get it 1000 year later, send a message back saying "Great, how are you?".
As you like science fiction, I will recomend you very hartly to read Larry Niven, (Jerry?) Pournelle, specially "The Mote in Gods Eye". It handle with an extremly interesting and problematic, though basically friendly, allien race.

Answer 7

from a christian point of view yes there are other intelligent life forms out there. The first few chapters of Job could be interpated as such. and since we are the only sinful planet then all of them have immortality. As far as how they look God has a great sence of humor and quite an imagination so in my opinion they look very different from us because we were created in God's immage. Now thats not to say there are other life forms out there that look simmilar to us. And in all that vastness of space are we really the only ones in it? so no you haven't watched too much Star Trek,. one of the best tv shows ever.

Answer 8

Use the Drake equation: N = N* fp ne fl fi fe fc fL.

N* represents the # of stars in the milky way galaxy. (about 100 billion)

fp is the fraction of those stars that have planets around them. (from 20%-50%)

ne is the # of planets per star that are capable of sustaining life. (from 1-5)

fl is the percentage of planets (ne) that actually produce life. (unknown, so it's between 0.000000001% and 100%)

fi is the percentage of those planets (fl) where intelligent life evolves. (unknown, so it's also between 0.0000000001% and 100%)

fc is the fraction of fi that communicate. (between 10%-20%)

fL is the fraction of the planet's life that the civilization exists. (1/100,000,000 to 1/1,000,000)

I did the math. The lowest probability of there being intelligent life in our galaxy is: 2.0000000000000002e-11 and the highest probability is: 40000 So basically, we have no idea.

If there was an alien civilization out there, I'd guess that they're probably similar to us in looks, assuming that everything evolves from the simplest unicellular organism, and that their planet has a similar environment. If they haven't destroyed themselves through war and self conflict then I'd guess that they're probably extremely advanced. In that case they would find us long before we find them. Currently I doubt we'd be able to communicate with anything at any large distance considering we haven't been able to put men on the moon for the last 40 years.

Answer 9

I am not sure. They might not look us . I think the SETI program is a good start in trying to look for intelligent life.

Answer 10

search on frank drake. he and a slew of scientists estimated this back in the 60's. it turns out, many of their estimates of various variables is turning out to be pretty right on. except, so far there is only one confirmed...ours.

Answer 11

Zero. (including earth)