Extraterrestrial

It will take 400,000 years to hear from aliens, scientists claim

By T.K. Randall
May 4, 2022 ·  57 comments

It might be a while before we hear from our galactic neighbors. Image Credit: CC0 Pixabay The question of whether we are alone in the universe remains one of the biggest philosophical conundrums of our time. While it seems almost inconceivable that our civilization is alone in the cosmos, the fact still remains that we have yet to see any evidence to the contrary.

The Fermi paradox, which highlights the contradiction between the likely existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the fact that we have still never encountered any, seems to suggest that either there are no aliens out there, or they are so rare that it is unlikely we would ever come across them.

Now according to a new paper by authors Wenjie Song and He Gao from the Department of Astronomy at Beijing Normal University, it could take another 400,000 years for humanity to actually make contact with an intelligent extraterrestrial civilization.

"As the only advanced intelligent civilization on the Earth, one of the most puzzling questions for humans is whether our existence is unique," they wrote.

"There have been many studies on extraterrestrial civilization in the past few decades."To reach this number, the researchers started out by revisiting the famous Drake equation which attempts to calculate the number of alien civilizations within our own galaxy.

This method is not without its flaws, however, as many of the figures used are best guesses.

"Most studies on this problem are based on the Drake equation," they wrote.

"The obvious difficulty of this method is that it is uncertain and unpredictable to quantify the probability that life may appear on a suitable planet and eventually develop into an advanced communicating civilization."

While their findings are interesting, sadly we have no way to know for sure if they are accurate.

"[T]he subject of extraterrestrial intelligent and communicative civilizations will remain entirely in the domain of hypothesis until any positive detection is made," the researchers concluded.

Source: Science Alert | Comments (57)

Tags: Alien, Extraterrestrial