HAVE you ever looked up at the night sky and wondered if somebody, or something, is looking back? If perhaps somewhere out there, the mysterious spark we call life has flickered into existence?
Intuitively, it feels as if we can't be alone. For every one of the 2000 stars you can see with your naked eye, there are another 50 million in our galaxy, which is one of 100 billion galaxies. In other words, the star we orbit is just one of 10,000 billion billion in the cosmos. Surely there is another blue dot out there - a home to intelligent life like us? The simple fact is, we don't know.