The astrobiological faith is greatly encouraged by recent discoveries of exoplanets. Prior to 1995, there was no evidence for any planets outside of our own solar system. That has changed dramatically, as scientists now estimate billions of planets exist although only 865 such planets have been identified as of this writing. Although the progress is remarkable, out of those, only nine (a mere 1 percent) are classified as potentially “habitable.” Accordingly, the search for planets around other stars is a key component in the search for extraterrestrial life. It is an exciting time in this endeavor. The NASA-owned Jet Propulsion Laboratory hosts a website called “Planet Quest: The Search for Another Earth” (see http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/). In fact, you can even join in on the search at www.planethunters.org by helping sift through the data from the Kepler space probe. To say they are enthused would be an understatement. There are several motivating factors. First, the existence of many extrasolar planets is used to imply that the Earth is not special. Second, it is assumed that planets positioned similarly to Earth in relation to their star are indeed like Earth. Third, astrobiologists argue that because the universe contains millions of planets, there is a high probability that life has evolved on some of them. The bottom line is that atheistic naturalists believe the existence of extraterrestrial life is a confirmation of their worldview, and this makes the Vatican’s involvement all the more peculiar.
