In the Sept. 30 article, "Scientists: found planet could be host for life," 200 billion stars was written to be the number of stars in the universe. That is about the number in our galaxy. The universe has as many as a billion trillion stars (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000).
Some stars produce the elements out of which living beings are made. I say, given the number of stars in the universe, it is impossible for there to be that many significant variations of what is out there. Also, DNA is so very special that it could very well be the basis for all life in the universe. So there is no proof, but life is abundant out there and virtually identical to life on Earth.
Best of all, it has been confirmed that the universe is so vast that any human on Earth will ever have only an infinitesimally small knowledge of it. I celebrate the unknown.
MARK STOCK
DULUTH
