Carl,

I enjoyed this article very much..............thank you.

It got me thinking more.................about the potential for intelligent life, similar to us on other planets in other worlds. 

We hear all the time that because of the enormous numbers of others stars/solar systems and planets that are capable of sustaining life, that the odds of intelligent life is very high.  That may be so but our planet, living in the Goldilocks zone has so many, many incredibly unique elements that are freaky lucky and that all had to happen just right, so that I'm thinking the odds may not be as high as we guess...............and it would only be a wild guess.

Here is one reason to state that. Your article, states that our sun is around 4.6 billion years old(4,600,000,000). Assuming that to be correct, then it took life intelligent enough to develop the technology advanced enough to send signals into space around 4.59999900 billion years to do it(the last 100 years).

We are currently sending out messages that, if reached by another advanced civilization, let's say 1 billion light years from us, if received and then responded to, will take 2 billion years before we hear back..............that ain't gonna happen as too many things are likely to kill off humans waaaay before that time comes. 

https://www.seti.org/seti-institute/project/details/broadcasting-message

But here's the thing. If there is intelligent life similar to us on another planet, we would not have to "wait" for them to get our message..........then reply. They would have already sent out their own message before getting ours. 

Let's take the fact that the universe is 13.9 billion years old.

How Old is the Universe?

https://www.space.com/24054-how-old-is-the-universe.html

 So there were many, many stars with planets like ours well before  our solar system developed. 

There would only have to be 1 of all of those, that developed, let's say a few billion years before we did and sent signals then, which should be reaching us now. 

Well, maybe  that life has already died because their sun and planet could only sustain intelligent life for a limited number of(millions) of years. 

Regardless, it seems to me, that if there are many thousands of other planets that had or have intelligent life, that at least one of them would have existed during a time frame that would be allowing us to pick up signals today..............even if it's a billions of years later.   

That's not to say that there are not ANY(there is not enough information to calculate actual odds), just that the number is "probably" not massive and none of them existed during a time frame which would allow for their transmissions to be currently crossing our air space. 

The Number Of Earth-Like Planets In The Universe Is Staggering - Here's The Math

https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/11/15/the-number-of-earth-like-planets-in-the-universe-is-staggering-heres-the-math/#2f28ca614932