The Force Awakens adds a seventh Star Wars movie (or eighth, if you count the animated Clone Wars and ignoring the two misguided Ewok movies of the mid-1980s). With it, more information is made available about the unnamed galaxy replete with Jedi and Sith.
This has, excuse the pun, “awakened” an interest in scientists keen to consider the possibilities of alien life. To assess the possibility of alien life in a given galaxy, astronomers apply the Drake equation. This is a scientifically established method for estimating our chances of finding alien life.
The Drake Equation was put forward by Dr. Frank Drake in 1961 and it identifies specific factors that should shape the development of such civilizations. These are, based on our own galaxy:
N = The number of civilizations in The Milky Way Galaxy whose electromagnetic emissions are detectable.
R* = The rate of formation of stars suitable for the development of intelligent life.
fp = The fraction of those stars with planetary systems.
ne = The number of planets, per solar system, with an environment suitable for life.
fl = The fraction of suitable planets on which life actually appears.
fi = The fraction of life bearing planets on which intelligent life emerges.
fc = The fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space.
L = The length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.
In the build-up to new Star Wars, New Scientist magazine asked astronomers to assess how many planets would need to have intelligent life for the Star Wars depiction to have a realistic basis. The outcome of this exercise is that the diversity of life shown on screen in the Star Wars galaxy is a little optimistic; however, it is far from being unrealistic.
In Star Wars, some 248 different alien species have been identified. Given the number of potential worlds, this comes out as 1 in 38 habitable planets developing sentient life at roughly the same time in Lucas’ (or rather Disney’s) galaxy.
The answer, by the way, for the Milky Way is a probable 4.5 billion Earth-like, potentially habitable planets.
