At this point in time we estimate the Milky Way contains about 500 thousand million stars, and that the universe contains roughly 100 billion galaxies. If we factor our galaxy as being average in size, we come to an estimate of roughly 100 million billion earth-like planets that may exist and be conducive to life.

By method of dissemination, it surfaces the question of the effect on human species if interaction with life from one of these planets were a reality. Commerce, manufacturing, social class, energy mining, and virtually every other strata of the earth would experience a shift. None would feel the shock waves of this as much as an individual’s beliefs about the world around them. That’s why I find this story below interesting.

Aliens could be out there, and believing that the universe may contain extraterrestrial life does not contradict a faith in God, the Vatican’s chief astronomer says.

The vastness of the universe – with its hundred billion galaxies and trillions of stars – means there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones, the Rev Jose Gabriel Funes, a Jesuit who directs the Vatican Observatory, says.

“How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?” Mr Funes said in an interview with Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, headlined: “The extraterrestrial is my brother.”

“Just as there is a multitude of creatures on Earth, there could be other beings, even intelligent ones, created by God. This does not contradict our faith, because we cannot put limits on God’s creative freedom,” he said.

“Just as we consider earthly creatures as ‘a brother’ and ‘sister’, why should we not talk about an ‘extraterrestrial brother’? It would still be part of creation.”

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