what is the probability that there is life in space?

Question: what is the probability that there is life in space?
- Keywords:
  life,
  space
Asked by antman to Christie, Dan, David, Dawn, Sian on 15 Jun 2016.
- Christie Waddington answered on 15 Jun 2016:
  
  This is an interesting question, and has been debated quite a lot by Physicists! In the 1960s, there was a guy called Frank Drake who came up with an equation called The Drake Equation which is was one way of working out the probability of extra-terrestrial life. It wasn’t a very accurate equation, and was only really used to get people thinking about the problem.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation
  
  Other Physicists, such as Stephen Hawking, have argued that the appearance of intelligent life on Earth may have been by chance. There may be planets out there thriving with life, but they have not evolved into intelligent beings such as humans. Personally, I think that there probably is intelligent life out there but that they’re like us in that they have not advanced their space technology enough to find us!
- Dan Lewis answered on 15 Jun 2016:
  
  My personal belief is there is definitely life in space as we are organisms that are present on planet earth. We are carbon based matter and rely on the earths resources to survive. I think the perception of what we imagine life to look like into space will not be an mirror of us although it could be we just haven’t found it yet.
- David Robertson answered on 15 Jun 2016:
  
  We don’t really know how easily life starts, all we know is it has started here on earth. There are lots of other planets out there, so plenty of places life could start, so the answer is we don’t know. Even if there is life out there it would have to be in a form that we could recognise (or could recognise us!). I suspect that there is life out there, but I think it is unlikely we’ll ever meet it.
- Dawn Lau answered on 15 Jun 2016:
  
  Personally, I believe that the universe is so big that there must be life in space, somewhere. They may not have developed advanced enough technology yet to contact us, or the distances between us are so great that current methods are unable to allow them to communicate with us, but I do believe we aren’t the only ones in space.
- Sian Thomas answered on 15 Jun 2016:
  
  Outside my area of expertise – but keen to know if / what they eat!

Question: what is the probability that there is life in space?

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