Good will to all

Let's see.  250 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy alone.

Even if the chances of life were 10 billion to 1, there would still be 25 planets like Earth.  And where are they in their development?  Will our 15 minutes of fame exist in the same 15 minutes as theirs? Or are they like Mars.  We missed their window by about a billion years.  They had water and life, but their atmosphere burned away and all their water evaporated.  Too bad.  It would have been a nice dance to have two planets so close exchanging ideas and DNA, I'm sure.

I would really like to meet E.T. one day.  The chances are good.  The Milky Way is not the only Galaxy, and the chances are really better than 10 billion to 1.  It could happen.  We'll probably meet them on another planet as we continue to explore.  It will be a neutral meeting place.

It'll probably happen after I am long gone, but that doesn't dampen my enthusiasm for seeing how they would communicate with us.  Possibilities are numerous - with math, with the universal shapes of space, with colors, with a certain spectrum like x-ray or gamma ray, maybe even with a language of some sort.  The symbol of M or W, with rounded peaks, and O, with or without other symbols inside the O, will definitely be one of their main symbols.  They are their chosen symbols of communication.  How ironic it would be (given the "peace, goodwill to men" heard so much at this time of year) if the symbols mean "peace" and "good will."