Scientists make prediction by changing 'Drake equation' to include Kepler data

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• published: 29 Apr 2016
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An advanced alien civilization DID exist before us: Scientists update prediction of alien life using latest Kepler exoplanet data.We may not be not the universe's first advanced civilization. That's the conclusion of a recent revision of the famous 1961 Drake Equation, which estimates the number of intelligent civilizations in the universe. Their new equation includes recent data from Nasa's Kepler satellite on the number of exoplanets that could harbour life. Researchers also adapted the equation from being about the number of civilizations that exist now, to being about the probability of civilization being the only one that has ever existed The study shows that unless the odds of advanced life evolving on a habitable planet are astonishingly low, then humankind is not the only advanced civilization to have lived. In fact, the odds of an advanced civilization developing need to be less than one in 10 billion trillion for humans to be the only intelligent life in the universe. But Kepler data places those odds much higher, which means technologically advanced aliens are likely to have existed at some point. 'The question of whether advanced civilizations exist elsewhere in the universe has always been vexed with three large uncertainties in the Drake equation,' said Adam Frank, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester and co-author of the paper. 'We've known for a long time approximately how many stars exist. 'We didn't know how many of those stars had planets that could potentially harbor life, how often life might evolve and lead to intelligent beings, and how long any civilizations might last before becoming extinct.' 'Thanks to Nasa's Kepler satellite and other searches, we now know that roughly one-fifth of stars have planets in 'habitable zones,' where temperatures could support life as we know it. 'So one of the three big uncertainties has now been constrained.' Frank said that the third big question - how long civilizations might survive - is still completely unknown. 'The fact that humans have had rudimentary technology for roughly ten thousand years doesn't really tell us if other societies would last that long or perhaps much longer,' he explained.