Intelligent Life Outside our Solar System?

I came across a cool activity that you, as a parent, can work together on with an older (middle/high school/college) child.  The question, are we alone in the Universe, is often asked.  It's a very difficult question to answer.  In my opinion, the answer is no, we are not alone in the Universe.  The conditions for life to develop on Earth are very specific, so the odds of a randomly selected planet supporting any life, let alone intelligent life, are very small.  But there are billions of stars in our galaxy and billions of galaxies in the Universe.  Given the large numbers it seems impossible to me that intelligent life doesn't exist somewhere else in the Universe.

In 1961, astronomer Frank Drake devised what is now known as the Drake Equation to estimate the number of intelligent civilizations in our galaxy.  The equation is below.

Kevin Gill from Los Angeles, CA, United States [CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]

The Drake Equation is useful in creating an estimated number of advanced civilizations, although several of the numbers plugged into the equation have a large range of acceptable inputs.  We'll probably never know the answer to this question, but it's fun to play with.

I encourage you and your child (most suitable for older children) to mess around with an interactive version of the Drake Equation that was published on the BBC website last week.  This interactive tool further explains the equation and the inputs and helps you decide what is an acceptable range.  After you put in your own numbers, it pops out the number of advanced civilizations in our galaxy and the number in the Universe with all galaxies included.

I plugged in my own numbers and came up with 38 advanced civilizations in our galaxy and 5.6 trillion advanced civilizations across the entire Universe.  What will you get?  Have fun!