Extraterrestrial

New 'formula for life' calculates odds of intelligent alien life

By T.K. Randall
November 14, 2024 ·  11 comments

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI) 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 in a renewed bid to determine just how likely it actually is that intelligent alien civilizations could have arisen elsewhere in the universe, astrophysicists have developed a new model based on the acceleration of the expansion of the universe and the number of stars formed.

The formula works by determining the amount of ordinary matter converted into stars over the entire history of the universe relative to the density of dark matter.

Their model, as it stands, places this figure for our own universe at just 23%.The same model can also be used to determine the likelihood of intelligent life in hypothetical, alternative universes with different dark matter densities.

"The parameters that govern our universe, including the density of dark energy, could explain our own existence," said lead researcher Dr. Daniele Sorini of Durham University.

"Surprisingly, though, we found that even a significantly higher dark energy density would still be compatible with life, suggesting we may not live in the most likely of universes."

It's certainly interesting to contemplate that life could exist not only within our own universe, but also beyond it.

"It will be exciting to employ the model to explore the emergence of life across different universes and see whether some fundamental questions we ask ourselves about our own universe must be reinterpreted," said study co-author Professor Lucas Lombriser.

Source: Phys.org | Comments (11)

Tags: Alien