Why we might be alone in the Universe

There are trillions upon trillions of stars and worlds in our Universe. Faced with such large numbers, it's tempting to conclude that there must surely be other life out there, somewhere. But is this right? Could the probability of life beginning be a number so small that we are alone? A video essay by Professor David Kipping.

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Further reading and resources:

► Chen, Jingjing & Kipping, David (2018), "On the Rate of Abiogenesis from a Bayesian Informatics Perspective", Astrobiology, 18, 12

► Hanson, Robin (1998), "Must Early Life Be Easy? The Rhythm of Major Evolutionary Transitions"

► Benzene in space materials and story

► Columbia University Department of Astronomy

► Cool Worlds Lab website

Music is largely by Chris Zabriskie () and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (), in order of appearance;

► The Sun is Scheduled to Come Out Tomorrow ()

► Music from Neptune Flux, "We Were Never Meant to Live Here" ()

► Cylinder Five ()

► Music from Neptune Flux, "Stories About the World That Once Was" ()

► "Waking Up" by Atlas, licensed through SoundStripe.com

► Cylinder Two ()

► Piano cover of S.T.A.Y. (Hans Zimmer) byt Jordie Eskes

Video materials used:

► Intro/outro video by Miguel Aragon of Johns Hopkins University with Mark Subbarao of the Adler Planetarium and Alex Szalay of Johns Hopkins using Sloan Digitial Sky Survey data

► Bacteria videos from Nikon Small World competitionand

► Tour of the J. Craig Venter Institute by Hedrich Blessing Motion and Sound

► Tardigrade footage

► Yellowstone park footage

► Bill Nye interview with Rita Braver aired on CBS Sunday Morning July 10 2016

► Neil deGrasse Tyson interview with Charlie Rose aired on PBS May 26 2015

► Carl Sagan interview with Charlie Rose aired on PBS May 27 1996

► Brian Cox interview on This Morning, ITV aired December 2 2014

► Milky Way animation by Stefan PayneWardenaar