A recent study at Australian National University tallied the number stars captured by our telescopes at 70 sextillion (70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000).

This mind-numbing number – represented by a 7 plus 22 zeros – is roughly 10 times the number of sand grains making up all of Earth’s beaches and deserts. In other words, for each and every grain of sand on our planet, there are 10 known stars!

Until very recently, the existence of exoplanets – planets orbiting stars other than our own sun – was merely a matter of speculation. In textbooks written just one generation ago, one can still find statements such as, “Other stars may have planets like those in our solar system, but there’s no way to know for sure.”

Now we know! The first confirmed exoplanet was found in the 1990s, and by July 2008, the existence of 306 more had been verified, with the pace of detection escalating to the point where new discoveries now occur weekly. (In 2007 alone, 61 new exoplanets were detected and verified, with others strongly suspected but not yet confirmed.)

But since our techniques of detecting them are still in the early stages, we naturally tend to find the larger exoplanets first. Consequently, many discovered thus far are gaseous giants like Jupiter and Saturn. Indeed, some are even considerably larger than that!

As methods for finding extra solar bodies continue to improve, it’s likely that we’ll find additional Earth-sized planets with conditions suitable for life – including intelligent life.

From there, it’s but a small step to acknowledging the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations far more advanced than our own.