Excellent write-up! I really enjoyed that artist's rendition of what the surface might look like, as-well as the "infographic-porn" (LOL). Also, I might add, I don't think there's really much chance of there not being intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe, mathematically speaking, considering the number of stars and average amount of planets (that we know of), it's almost impossible for there not to be intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos. If it happened here, it definitely happened elsewhere. I'm not a scientist, just speaking with logic here based upon the size -edit- and density of the known universe. Thanks for sharing!