QUESTION:
Do you think there is intellegent life on other planets?

ANSWER from Megan Donahue on April 1, 1996:
My answer depends on where the other planets are. I don't
think there is intelligent life on the other planets that
we know about. HOWEVER! I do think there is a very good chance
that intelligent life exists in the Universe, somewhere.

I suspect that our own Galaxy isn't exactly crawling with
life, ala Star Trek and Star Wars fantasies, but I am convinced
that the drive to life and intelligence is a very powerful
force, and that if the right circumstances are present, life
and even intelligent life, become not only possible, but
REQUIRED.

Being an astronomer doesn't make me a particular expert in this
area, except to assure you that I have spent many nights looking
at the stars and I have never seen a UFO, and I have never met
another astronomer who claimed to see one. So you have sworn
evidence of a lot of people who have spent a lot of time combing
the night skies who have yet to run into any evidence of extraterrestrial
life.

Why do I think life exists on other worlds? There are two parts
to my answer. The first part is that the Universe is a huge place.
The observable Universe is about 10 billion
to 20 billion years old. Therefore its size is about 10-20 billion
light-years (if you know the definition of a light-year, and what
I mean by "observable" you know why the observable Universe is as
big as its "age" in light-years.) Within that expanse exist many
hundreds of billions of galaxies, each with about 100 billion stars.
Each of those stars could have several planets, and any one of those
planets may be in an orbit around its sun that was optimal for life.
Lots and lots of stars. It's sort of like having ten thousand billion
billion lottery tickets in a contest with multiple prizes. You know,
you just might win. More than once.

The second part of my answer you might not identify with, but I'll
give it anyway. I just became a mom about a year ago, and I personally
witnessed the growth of a human being from something so tiny that we
could barely see her on the ultrasound screen to a 22 pound, walking,
talking, laughing tyke! And she did this all with only minimal help
and zero knowledge on my part. I ate, she grew. Pretty simple, but she
not only grew, she *complexified*.  Human development is driven not
only by programming that is demanding but *redundant*. [If you work
with computers, you know that a program that has a few lines destroyed
does not work the way you want it to. In fact, computer programs are
usually quite fragile that way. You remove one letter, and it no longer
works. Luckily, life is not that fragile, at least early on. The
"programming" that guides the development of life has internal copies,
so that a tiny piece can be damaged, but the programming will still work.]
Anyway, here I'm speaking about the power of life from my experience as
a mother. It's an powerful experience to be both a mother and a scientist.
I see things with this merged vision, and life becomes simultaneously a
subject of curiosity and incredible beauty.