Damn Interesting - Space Radio: More Static, Less Talk - [Stumbles via StumbleUpon]

This is a fascinating article about the possibility of finding life on other planets in our galaxy. What I thought was particularly interesting about it was the interactive Drake Equation. According to conservative estimates there are 2 civilizations that are probably communicating via radio in our galaxy. Here are my estimates:

New Milky Way stars per year = 6.00
Proportion of stars which have planets = 50.00%
Average number of life-compatible satellites = 0.05
Percentage of planets where life does appear = 55.00%
Percentage where intelligent life evolves = 9.00%
Percentage of civilizations which send signals into space = 10.00%
Average years that civilizations will send signals = 5000.00
Average civilizations in our galaxy = 3.7

Now here is the thing, according to my estimates there are 3.7 communicating civilizations in our galaxy, but that is only our galaxy. In our entire universe there are somewhere between 100 billion and 500 billion galaxies. So let's say that I plug some ultra conservative estimates into the Drake equation and find the the probability is .0000000001 (That's 9 zero's) then that means there are somewhere between 10 and 50 other advanced civilizations in our universe. And to be quite honest, I would be happy with just one.

Star makers | COSMOS magazine - [Stumbles via StumbleUpon]

Fascinating! I find it kind of sad to think about all the leaps and bounds that our civilization will make over the next thousand, million, or billion years; and yet I won't be around to see any of it.