Aliens must be out there What if we're just doing a slapdash job of looking for them? By Farhad Manjoo New York Times February 12, 2021 — 11:24am Text size Copy shortlink: The sun is not special. I know that's a churlish thing to say about everyone's favorite celestial body, our planet's blazing engine and eternal clock, giver of light, life and spectacular Instagram backdrops. Awesome as it is, though, the sun is still a pretty ordinary star, one of an estimated 100 billion to 400 billion in the Milky Way galaxy alone. And the Milky Way is itself just one galaxy among hundreds of billions or perhaps trillions in the observable universe.