An Australian observatory recently used a radio telescope in New South Wales and the Canary Isles to look at a strip of sky.

Within the strip of sky some 10,000 galaxies were pinpointed and detailed measurements of their brightness taken to calculate how many stars they contained. That number was then multiplied by the number of similar sized strips needed to cover the entire sky and then multiplied again out to the edge of the visible universe.

Driver [head honcho] said there were likely many million more stars in the universe but the 70 s­extillion figure was the number visible within range of modern telescopes.

70 s­extillion is 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

The average number of planets orbiting each of those stars could possibly be 7 or more. Those planets could have moons orbiting them. Some of those moons could be bigger than Earth.

Given all that real estate it is very likely that there is intelligent, technological life out there. But we may never even detect it nor it detect us. I.e. just to traverse the diameter of the Milky Way galaxy would take 100,000 years even travelling at the speed of light. It is a fundamental law of physics that nothing having mass can travel at the speed of light. Indeed we shall probably never travel at 5% of the speed of light.

It is a tad unfortunate that although it is almost certain that there is intelligent life out there we may never know of it and it may never know of us, the huge distances defeating the most advanced technology.