Are We Alone?
From ancient times,/people have wondered/if there are other planets like Earth. That is still an open question today. Richard Dawkins tells us/that we are getting closer to an answer.
1
Is there life on other planets? Nobody knows for sure,/but I’d say yes. One day/we may have clear evidence/of life on other planets,/but for now,/the best we can do/is to reduce the uncertainty.
The first thing we might ask/is how many planets there are. People used to believe/that the ones orbiting our sun/were the only ones. But now we know/that in our galaxy/most stars have planets. So,/we can probably conclude/that most of the stars in the universe/have planets.
The number of stars in our galaxy/is about 100 billion,/and the number of galaxies in the universe/is about the same. That means/10,000 billion billion stars/in total.
According to astronomers,/only about 10 percent of stars/are like the sun. Stars that are very different from the sun/are unlikely to support life on their planets/for various reasons:/for example,/stars that are much bigger than the sun/will not last long enough before exploding. But even if we are talking/only about the planets orbiting sun-like stars,/we are dealing in billions of billions.
From ancient times,/people have wondered/if there are other planets like Earth. That is still an open question today. Richard Dawkins tells us/that we are getting closer to an answer.
1
Is there life on other planets? Nobody knows for sure,/but I’d say yes. One day/we may have clear evidence/of life on other planets,/but for now,/the best we can do/is to reduce the uncertainty.
The first thing we might ask/is how many planets there are. People used to believe/that the ones orbiting our sun/were the only ones. But now we know/that in our galaxy/most stars have planets. So,/we can probably conclude/that most of the stars in the universe/have planets.
The number of stars in our galaxy/is about 100 billion,/and the number of galaxies in the universe/is about the same. That means/10,000 billion billion stars/in total.
According to astronomers,/only about 10 percent of stars/are like the sun. Stars that are very different from the sun/are unlikely to support life on their planets/for various reasons:/for example,/stars that are much bigger than the sun/will not last long enough before exploding. But even if we are talking/only about the planets orbiting sun-like stars,/we are dealing in billions of billions.