The Beginning and the End: Essays by Isaac Asimov

Author:Isaac Asimov [Asimov, Isaac]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780385130882
Google: _DpcW_TIxf4C
Amazon: 0385130880
Goodreads: 2509985
Published: 2022-12-25T13:58:16+00:00

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shakily) from the one system we know, our own. He ended by suggesting that our galaxy might have as many as 640,000,000

Earth-like, life-bearing planets and, presumably, that there may be as many as that in each of the other galaxies, on the average.

He also concludes that there is a 50 percent chance of finding an Earth-like life-bearing planet within 22 light-years of Earth.

T o be sure, since 1963 added knowledge concerning the Universe has made it seem, increasingly, to be a desperately violent place. There are quasars that are far smaller than galaxies yet far brighter, neutron stars that have arisen out of gigantic stellar explosions, black holes that inexorably swallow up all neighboring matter and give back nothing at all.

It may be that the nucleus of every galaxy is the scene of violent events that produce an environment inimical to life. It may be that we might expect life to exist only in the sparsely distributed stars in the quiet suburbia of a galaxy’s spiral arms.

Only 10 percent of the stars in a galaxy are located in its spiral arms, so that the chance of life in the Universe might be viewed as falling dramatically to only 10 percent of what might have been thought a little over a decade ago. Yet even so, Dole’s calculations might yield 64,000,000 Earth-like life-bearing planets in the spiral arms alone and that is not exactly a small number. And since our own Solar system is located in one of the spiral arms of our Galaxy, our near neighbors within, say, 10,000 light-years would remain unaffected by this view.

T h e sort of astronomical thinking that, since W orld W ar II, has made it seem that both planets and life are overwhelmingly common in the Universe has, of course, had its effect on popular thinking. Quite aside from science fiction stories which have very frequently depended on plenty of planets and a great deal of life to add thickening to their plots, new cults involving extraterrestrial life have arisen.

There is, for instance, the flying saucer cult, which grew up immediately after W orld W ar II. This assumes that spaceships from other worlds are regularly observing Earth. As it becomes less and less possible for anyone, even cultists, to suppose that there are space travelers from any of the worlds in the Solar system, there

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