At UT we’ve a long-running program on Fermi Paradox possible solutions why are we not detecting alien life in the Universe? There’re, however, more and more feasible solutions being created all the time. Another paper now adds an additional theory to one of the most widely used theories that aliens are too busy to bother us.
The paper, posted on arXiv, was authored by Amri Wandel of the Racah Institute of Physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. There are a couple of fundamental assumptions made by it. First of all, aliens are not keen on planets that have life. Then again, they may be interested in finding intelligent life in one.
For the initial idea to be valid, it would aid if the existence of “biotic” planets is extensive (i.e., with biology). In this particular scenario, even the most advanced civilizations might not have enough resources to explore those planets completely, especially not in the form of a probe. And if all those radio waves just simply wash over several primitive single-cell organism, then sending messages is much less energy intensive than sending physical things.
Not too long ago, researchers have put a lot more faith in the theory due to the preponderance of exoplanets in the habitable zones of the stars. Let us think that every one of these grows life in some stage of their development. If so, the galaxy may very well be so abounding with it that it wouldn’t be worth the time of advanced civilizations to take a look each biotic earth before it acquires intelligence.
Nevertheless, as soon as a planet has developed intelligence, it might in reality be interesting to them. Fermi Paradox is based on the reality that it isn’t especially simple to detect intelligent life. Thus, it’s most likely fairly unusual in the galaxy up to now. Consequently, any instance of it might possibly be intriguing even to an advanced civilization. To identify intelligent life from a distance, the easiest thing for an advanced civilization to do is Searching for warning signs of synthetic radio or other signals, similar to what we are doing in the Hunt for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project.
How would the planet look like if aliens observed signs of intelligence on Earth? The radio signals which the Earth started sending out around hundred years ago are probably the most obvious ones. In those hundred years, the signals would have theoretically gotten to the closest 15,000 stars, but only those within 50 light-years would have been able to send anything back that we’d have seen.
That radius includes 1300 star systems out of the 100 billion to 400 billion star systems in the Milky Way. By galactic standards, not a lot, but still a non-zero number. SETI researchers believe, though, that after about a mild year of traveling, the radio signals we sent, which were more of an accident of broadcast television than of any intentional signaling mechanism, could be indistinguishable from background sound.
Consequently, there’s a very good possibility that even in those 1300 star systems which could have responded, they wouldn’t have been able to identify our intentional techno signature and might still be unaware of intelligent life on this planet. And when non – intelligent life is abundant, why would humans bother to spend any resources to contact a likely non – wise world? Hence, a solution to the Fermi Paradox – aliens have been silent so far since they have not noticed any sign that we’re smart.
It’s certainly a stylish solution, and one that has been proposed previously in other forms. The argument is, however, well explained in Wandel’s paper and is well worth reading for anyone interested in solutions to possibly the greatest questions of our time.
Link to the original article on UT.
