>No matter what degree of variability is chosen, alien planets are very unlikely to be much larger than the Earth. To be specific, we can say with 95% confidence that another planet with intelligent life, such as our nearest neighbour, will have a circumference no more than 20% greater than that of the Earth.
Huh? I see no justification for this.
I'm firmly in the "We know nothing about aliens and won't until we get some hard data" camp.
Alien life will, by definition, be alien. We have no basis for assuming it's even going to be recognisable as life.
Life essentially seems to be a persistent self-reproducing dissipative structure that responds to evolutionary pressure. There is nothing in the manual that requires liquid water, gravity, a planetary surface, carbon, or any of the other ingredients that define life on Earth.
Huh? I see no justification for this.
I'm firmly in the "We know nothing about aliens and won't until we get some hard data" camp.
Alien life will, by definition, be alien. We have no basis for assuming it's even going to be recognisable as life.
Life essentially seems to be a persistent self-reproducing dissipative structure that responds to evolutionary pressure. There is nothing in the manual that requires liquid water, gravity, a planetary surface, carbon, or any of the other ingredients that define life on Earth.