i watched a tv show about the search for earth-like planets

here's what i can tell you about it

• since life as we know it requires water, interesting planets need to fall into the goldilocks zone where liquid water could exist
• they started finding hot jupiters a little while ago. since they are big they detectably wobble their star. so far they've found hundreds if not a thousand or so
• not all planets have a day and a night. some have a permanent hot side and a dark side
• they actually have found one or two earth sized planets in the liquid water zone by looking at wobble variations
• the new way to search for planets is to look for light fluctuations as the planet traverses the star. it requires better telescopes like the new space telescope 'kepler', but it should allow detection of smaller earth sized planets. kepler's first mission is to spend four years doing just that
  
• there are computer simulators for solar system formation. simulations show that: a. most stars end up with planets, b. hot jupiters are probably way less common than earth-like planets in the golidlocks zone and in fact c. our planet actually has less water than the typical earth-like planet (according to the simulator at least)

now there's still some question about the probability of life starting, given an environment where it is possible. (though consider the recently discovered multi-cellular life that doesn't metabolise oxygen [citation needed], and the deep sea volcanic vent eco systems which both seem to indicate life on earth might have possibly have originated more than once [disclaimer: i am not a biologist]).

but the conclusion i am drawing is that IT IS ALMOST CERTAIN THAT LIFE EXISTS ON OTHER PLANETS. HOLY EFFING CRAP YOU GUYS.

i don't know how old that tv show was. but i trust you can use google to get yourself up to date on this stuff.