/sci/ - Science & Math

the milk way is 13 billion years old and 100,000 light years across.

it has taken 4 billion years for life to go from the simpliest of single cells to humans. modern human is only 30,000 years old. we have only been putting out anything detectable for a few decades. we've only been looking for intelligent life for a few decades.

consider the sheer numbers of stars and planets we have to look at. the further away we look the farther back in time. it is going to be sheer luck that we ever come across definitive proof of intelligent alien life.

the most plausible way to find life. Is to analyze the light coming from exoplanets. if there is free oxygen present in amounts more significant than trace. Then you can safely theorize that the planet at least has cyanobacteria and or algae. even this will be a monumental task.