A Good-Turing Approach to Estimating the Probability of Extraterrestrial Life

Abstract

This paper attempts to approximate the likelihood of the occurrence of Extraterrestrial Civilizations, using parameters in the Drake Equation in combination with a Simple Good-Turing missing mass estimator, bayesian analysis and empirical data collected from the NASA Kepler Mission. Exoplanet are categorized into species by stellar mass and location within circumstellar habitable zones. The frequency of each planetary species is then used to estimate the likelihood of further discoveries. These likelihoods are then applied to a sample of the TIC Stellar Catalog. Stellar age and mass, in tandem with evidence of the timeline of terrestrial evolution, are used to calculate the likelihood of abiogenesis. The model finds that the probability of zero ETCs occurring is negligible.