In a Few Decades,a New Generation of Powerful Telescopes Especially

Multiple Choice

In a few decades,a new generation of powerful telescopes especially designed to find extrasolar planets may be operational and sending us data.What might these results mean for our use of the Drake equation?

A) With these results in hand, the Drake equation will become irrelevant.
B) The structure of the Drake equation itself will undoubtedly have to be drastically revised.
C) We will have much better values for the factors fp (the fraction of stars that have planets) and nₑ (the number of planets per solar system that are Earthlike) .
D) We will have much better values for the factors fl (the fraction of Earthlike planets on which life actually arises) , fᵢ (the fraction of life-forms that evolve into intelligent species) , and fc (the fraction of intelligent species that develop adequate technology and then choose to send messages out into space) .