Researchers from Durham University in England surveyed more than 1,000 scientists, both astrobiologists and non-astrobiologists, to assess their beliefs about the existence of basic, complex and intelligent life beyond Earth. Their findings were published in nature astronomy. Almost 87 percent of astrobiologists agreed or strongly agreed that at least basic extraterrestrial life likely exists in the universe, while less than 2 percent disagreed and 12 percent remained neutral. Similarly, more than 88 percent of other scientists concurred that other life forms exist.

These results align with mathematical reasoning. With an estimated 100 billion galaxies in the universe, each containing billions of stars, and our understanding of habitable planets and moons, the probability of no other life forms existing is less than one in a billion billion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000).