Trillions of habitable planets, those that can sustain liquid water, exists in the universe. From looking at the number of habitable planets that exist, there should be other life forms in the universe and out of these life forms, there should be intelligent civilizations. When looking for alien civilizations, researchers look at the planetary bodies within our local group. Everything outside the local group is unreachable because the universe is always expanding.1 “If only 0.1% of those planets harbored life, there would be 1 million planets with life in the Milky Way.”1 The Fermi Paradox questions why humans have not yet come in contact with alien civilizations. This question was first asked by physicist Enrico Fermi. While having a conversation …show more content…
According to the Kardashev Scale, there are three types of civilizations. Type One civilizations are able to access all available energy on its planet; Type Two civilizations are able to gather and use energy from its star; and Type Three civilizations rules over its galaxy, dictates and watch over other life forms.3 Humans are currently in the process of becoming a Type One civilization, meaning that if extraterrestrial societies exist, it is very likely that they are far more advance than us. This leads to one of the possible solutions to the Fermi Paradox. The technology we are using may not be advanced enough or are not the right kind to communicate with extraterrestrials. Alien life might be more different than we can understand. They could be out there looking for us but we are undetectable because of our primitive technology. For example, “imagine sitting at a house with a Morse code transmitter, you’d keep sending messages but nobody would answer.”3 There is also uncertainties about how far technology can advance. We could be at its limit or we could be very primitive in terms of its possibilities. If human technology is already close to the limit of technological advancement, then perhaps the reason we haven’t came in contact with extraterrestrials is because a visit is impossible. Spaceships have to travel at a speed lower than the
In the “The Great Silence” Ted Chiang creates a thought experiment that helps the reader understand a possible answer to Fermi’s paradox. Fermi’s paradox poses two questions the first is why haven’t we encountered extraterrestrial life if there are billions of stars in the universe like the sun that are capable of sustaining life. Second, the universe has existed long enough for interstellar travel to be possible, but why hasn’t anything contacted us yet?
(Gato-Rivera, 2005) Additionally, there were many solutions to the Fermi paradox, the most popular non-expansionist being that interstellar travel is not possible because the technology level has not yet been reached by the civilization. Another solution theorizes advanced civilization have little interest in expanding beyond their region in the galaxy. Dissimilarly, another solution states that technologically advanced civilizations annihilate themselves or disappear by natural causes before getting a chance to spread through the large regions of the galaxy. (Gato-Rivera, 2005) Whereas, the most popular expansionist solution is that advanced civilization might have ethics code which prevent them from interfering with human life. Another solution is the advanced civilization ignores earth due to the fact of our low primitive level because the civilizations would be millions of years ahead of human capabilities. (Gato-Rivera,2005) These are some of the few solutions that researchers have come up with supporting the Fermi
A question many ask is, “are we alone in this universe?” Formulas, like The Drake Equation, and arguments, like the Fermi’s paradox, have been proposed help use deduce whether our universe is a biological one. The Drake Equation puts forth high probabilities of extraterrestrial life. However, there are skeptics who believe there is only one planet where life can exist, and this planet is the one that discover us. Whether or not life outside of Earth exist, the exploration of the biological universe is beneficial to humanity’s understanding of our place in the universe.
Over a 1950 summer lunch at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the great physicist Enrico Fermi asked his colleagues an unexpected question – “Don’t you ever wonder where everybody is?” Laughter went around the table as everyone immediately knew that he was talking about extraterrestrial intelligence [1]. If life arises fairly commonly, as Fermi believed, it follows that there should be advanced civilizations with the desire to visit and colonize Earth close enough to do so. However, there is no incontrovertible evidence of aliens on Earth, either now or in the past. This is called the Fermi Paradox. The lack of observational evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence is known as the ‘Great Silence.’[13]
The existence of life – Aliens, beyond our planet has been a controversial topic for several centuries, and is a debatable issue even today in the 21st century. What is our topic you may ask? Aliens, Do, Exist. According to theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking, it would be improbable for life not to exist somewhere other than Earth. This is a bold claim, but there is evidence to support this statement. The evidence we seek is in the many Alien occurrences we have experienced throughout human history.
One of the most controversial arguments of this day, are aliens real or they just a hoax. We all always wonder if really do exist, and to the people who don't believe that they exist I will try my best to change your minds a little that there is living life forms on planets or galaxies. In fact, Mars actually has ice or water scattered around the Martian planet. The famous hidden and heavily guarded place in the U.S is the Nevada Test and Training Range and Groom Lake, aka “Area 51”, has been in suspicion of keeping top secret things from the Roswell UFO Incident that happened in 1947. Well we all know the CIA will snag those things up and hide them, instead of showing the curious world if we are really the only ones that occupy this plant or even this whole universe. With great numbers of stars covering our solar system or universe, life is possible. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know if other planets went through the same stages that our earth is going through in this heavily planet and star populated universe.
Since the beginning of time, mankind has sought after learning about and exploring the universe. This yearning drove us to achieve such great things as the journey to the moon and the discovery of water on Mars. Nowadays, several people argue as to whether or not space exploration is worth the effort. I believe that it is humanity’s instinctual nature to pursue a better understanding of ourselves, and our universe. Further understanding of our universe will lead to the discovery of new technologies and ways to secure humanity’s survivability.
A galaxy, also called a nebula, consists of billions of stars, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter which are all bound to form a massive cloud in which we live in. Although it cannot be very well explained, dark matter makes up at least 90% of a galaxy’s mass. Galaxies also contain billions upon billions of stars and their diameter can range from 1,500 to 300,000 light years. That’s huge! The Milky Way, the galaxy in which we live in, is one of about 170 billion galaxies in the observable universe. Our Sun is one of the billions of stars in our galaxy, and our eight planets revolve around this star in only a tiny part of our galaxy. “The Earth’s solar system is believed to exist very close to the Galaxy’s galactic plane, due to the fact that the Milky Way essentially divides the night sky into two virtually equal hemispheres” ("All About the Milky"). It definitely makes people second guess the fact of there being life on other planets.
The real answer: there’s no way of knowing. Though scientist Rene Heller conducted an experiment that proved that humans were capable of decoding a fabricated “alien” message from
On one hand, there are people who believe that there is alien life elsewhere in the universe or that there is the possibility for alien life to exist. On the other hand, there are people who believe that alien life cannot exist and never will. Within these categories, there are more subgroups. Starting with the groups of people who believe aliens can exist are the people who believe the world has already encountered extraterrestrials. A well known theory regarding extraterrestrial existence is the ancient astronaut theory proposed by Erich von Däniken (1968).
Furthermore, if extraterrestrials are uncooperative and attack on human race and somehow if humanity manages to defeat them then we gain a major moral victory, and the opportunity to reverse-engineer ETI technology (Baum et al., 2011,
Do aliens exist? For eons, mankind has pondered over this peculiar question and a revealing truth has yet to be answered. However, one thing is known for sure, the discovery of intelligent alien life outside of Earth would provide support to prove and/or disprove fundamental beliefs that have been held for centuries. In any case, the discovery would serve as a cornerstone for humanity to make the quantum leap in understanding the purpose of our existence. Based on numerous examples, it is impossible to deny the existence of extraterrestrial life outside of Earth. Reportings of sightings, ancient civilizations beliefs, and scientific proof from scientists and astronomers are all key factors that contribute to this statement.
The argument suggesting life existing on other Earth-like planets has been present since man first looked into space and questioned his own existence and the existence of others like him. Today there are many theories on the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, but only one theory goes beyond them and into an even larger realm. The contents of this theory, known as the “multiverse” theory, suggest that humans on Earth live within one universe of many others that reside within a primordial vacuum containing many other universes (Jenkins and Perez). Each of these universes possesses potentially different natural constants and physical laws that govern them differently, thus calling forth some logical questions. First, what is the likelihood such universes even exist, and second, how can we test the constants and laws that still result in the possibility of intelligent life in other universes? Moreover, what implications does this theory have on the ideology that this universe is designed specifically for human beings?
“I think we’re going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth within a decade, and I think we’re going to have definitive evidence within 20 to 30 years… We know where to look. We know how to look” ~Ellen Stofan, NASA Chief Scientist (Wall). First off, there are many different beliefs about alien life.
One of the most provocative mysteries of the Universe is whether or not we're alone. Our galaxy alone contains potentially hundreds of billions of planets. Let alone the other billions of galaxies in the observable Universe (Kerr, "Alone in the Universe"). Considering those numbers, it is very likely that we are not alone. You could even say it's arrogant to believe we are the only planet able to inhabit thriving life forms.