Aliens likely won’t communicate with Earth as they see no intelligence signals
The Fermi Paradox has long baffled the thinking part of humanity, and countless solutions have been proposed over the years, some bleaker than others.
Now another article offers an answer to the question why aliens haven’t made contact yet. And that answer can be pretty off-putting to some of us: we’re probably not smart enough.
Earth may not be technologically advanced enough, and therefore Earthlings aren’t of much interest to warrant the attention of progressive aliens, according to the article, which has yet to be peer-reviewed.
Aliens, if they exist, are probably far more concerned with finding traces of high-tech than signs of life, and therefore, perhaps, they just didn’t notice us all this time.
Earthlings and Aliens
The essence of the Fermi paradox is that if the universe is so large, and therefore the probability of extraterrestrial life is so high, why haven’t we contacted anyone yet?
The answers offered so far range from disturbing to vaguely comforting, with some suggesting that we should wait at least 400,000 years before receiving even a welcome.
A new paper by astrophysics professor Amri Wandel hypothesizes that life may be more abundant in the Milky Way than we think, meaning potential aliens have many options in choosing who to make contact with. And, unfortunately for us, people are just not on their priority target list.
“If there are so many biotic planets that habitability and life alone do not provide enough motivation for extraterrestrial interstellar exploration, then planets with Technology signatures may attract the attention of extraterrestrial civilizations to send probes,” Wandel writes.
However, technological signatures, such as radio transmissions, are quite difficult to detect. Earthlings first transmitted radio signals that could be detected in space less than 100 years ago, meaning that only civilizations within 50 light-years of us could notice these signals and respond.
Radio waves from Earth could already reach the nearest 15,000 stars, according to Universe Today, but that’s just a drop in the ocean of the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way.
“The probability that a civilization will be close enough to Earth to detect our radiosphere and send a space probe reaching the solar system turns out to be very small, unless the civilizations are extremely numerous,” Wandel writes.
“Currently, there must be 100 million or more intelligent civilizations in our galaxy for signals from Earth to reach them.”
In effect, the Earth is screaming, “Look at us, we’re smart!” but the message simply doesn’t reach those who might be interested.
So the aliens didn’t try to contact us because why would they? According to them, there are no signs of intelligent life on Earth.
But with time and more radio broadcasts, someone can still hear us.
“The chance that Earth’s radiosphere will one day engulf [reach] an extraterrestrial civilization increases with time,” Wandel added.
And the likelihood that we will receive a response research probe is also increasing: at a certain point in the History of civilization, after the advent of radio communications, called the “age of contacts,” contact with extraterrestrials becomes most likely.
But until now, hundreds or even thousands of years separate us from the “brothers in mind” answer.
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