Either that or as Elon once said, maybe life is just that special. I would still love for someone to do a Bayesian analysis of finding life on a planet/in a galaxy. It sounds pretty crazy when I say it out loud. We’re staring into infinity essentially.

So yeah, life must be out there. But maybe “there” is very very far. Possibly many million light years away. In other words, in a universe with billions of galaxies containing billions of stars, life is likely not very plentiful. I imagine encountering any element besides H/He is usually a discovery (more so if the element is higher up in the periodic order, such as the ones needed for our kind of life).

Then again, there is so much we don’t know. Like dark matter (anti-proton/electron/neutron/*). Maybe there is life that exists in anti-everything - (anti-carbon, etc). It won’t be very good if we ever encounter them (our carbon based bodies and anti-carbon based one will collapse on encounter, emanating a staggering amount of energy).