First you get excited. Then you get depressed.
The big news in planet hunting has been the Kepler space mission's discovery of more than 1,000 new planets. These planets were found based on searching only a small portion of the sky. When the scientists extrapolate their findings to the galaxy as whole the estimate the number of planets in our cosmic neighbor hood (i.e. the Milky Way Galaxy) to be over 50 billion. 50,000,000,000 planets! The galaxy is literally teaming with worlds.
It's a stunning, mind-boggling result. The shear number of worlds seems to validate countless science fiction visions of starships darting between planetary systems in a trans-galactic multi-world culture of intrigue and adventure. Or does it? Sadly, if we keep our heads on straight and do not extrapolate to a future scientific miracle it does not. While the planets might be out there our ability to build a star-spanning civilization appears so limited that, perhaps, the idea is all but impossible.
Let me explain.
Typical NPR bull puckey. To read the rest of the article, click here.