Scientists found yet another potentially hospitable "Goldilocks" planet, this one being a scant 22 lightyears away. So with all these findings that have been increasing in frequency of goldilock planets, just how much life is out there?

There has to be a lot, due to sheer probability. Well all know one life sustaining planet out of trillions is ridiculous, so there must be the probabilty of many, many more.

Let’s send Newt to find out.

@dappled_leaves
Bad Idea. His dispicable nature will just cause the inhabitants to send an extermination force to earth.
Actually, it is a good idea after all.

Do the maths yourself!

14.42 Gizmobodies.

@dappled_leaves at first I thought you meant This Newt who I thought handled an alien situation pretty well.

My answer, according to the drake equation is ∞

(sign for infinite)

It seems likely that there are untold billions of planets in the universe and probably hundreds of thousands of planets that can support life. On many of these it is quite possible that intelligent life will have created civilizations that are as great or greater than our own. It is a pity that the universe is so vast that we will never be able to contact them or learn anything about them. Or there again, maybe it is for the best.

Well, at the moment all we have evidence for is that there are planets in a possibly habitable zone. We have no evidence of life as yet. If I were a betting man, though, I would say simple life (such as cyanobacteria) are common, and complex life, like onions, are rare.

@YoKoolAid Haha! Touché.

My guess: a shitload.

Just cause the conditions are right, doesn’t mean life automatically begins. If it did, there would be life on Mars.
I am sure there is life somewhere out there. Finding it, and reaching it might be beyond our ablities for many years.

I wouldn’t beat all surprised to learn Roddenberry had it right when he wrote Trek with the assumption that the universe is teeming with life.

Besides, Goldilocks (or for the Trekkies, Class M planets) only describe the conditions for life as we know it. Who knows whether there may be lifeforms with different needs on non-class M planets?

I refer to xkcd way too much, (in real life, on here a bit) but here anyway.
For me it’s never been if there’s life out there, I’m beyond certain there is, scattered across the universe (at least). It’s how we find them. (And how we’ll react if/when we do…) But then, I’m sure my view is colored by the overdose of Contact I was given as a child.
Because I’d love to find at least some of the various groups and get to find out what they know and see and experience that we don’t. To see how different our assumptions are from theirs, and their life—world—is from ours.
I wonder if we’ll ever be able to find a way to communicate, though, even if we do find some of the other life out there—through the probable communication differences, and in a more timely manner than decades/centuries/millenias of travelling light.

M-Class refers to the conditions on the planet itself, e.g. extensive plant life, liquid water, not the position of the planet within its solar system. Planets within the “goldilocks” zone can still be desert worlds (H-Class), gas giants (J-Class), barely habitable with primitive ecosystems (L-Class) or lifeless but suitable for terraforming (K-Class)

@ragingloli that begs the question of an M-Class planet not being in the Goldilocks zone, since it would not then have extensive plant life, or any at all, unless they can thrive without water.

@filmfann It can be outside the zone (where it is colder) if for example it has a very thick atmosphere full of greenhouse gases that heat up the planet, or very active volcanism.
and it is “raising the question” not “begging the quesstion”

I think a class-M planet would have to be in the Goldilocks zone, but a planet in the Goldilocks zone doesn’t necessarily have to be a class-M planet.

@Seek_Kolinahr, I’ve always wondered if we have ever actually found life, just in a form that isn’t familiar to us as life.