A new study has provided another explanation for why intelligent life has not been found in the universe yet.
The universe consists of about 200 billion trillion stars (2 followed by 230) stars, so scientists often ask the ominous question, where are alien civilizations if conditions for life are possible on so many planets? The Fermi Paradox says it tries to answer this very question IFLScience.
Many theories have already been generated, ranging from the simple – life may be rare and communication faces temporal and spatial barriers – to more sinister ideas. These include hypotheses that highly advanced species hunt down more primitive civilizations, or, more threatening to us, that intelligent life simply destroys itself before it can leave its planet.
Is the greatest test of intelligent life upon us?
clarification. Featured Image: Depositimages.com
The new study supports the latest theories, because according to astronomers, intelligent civilizations will be destroyed long before they are able to contact others. According to the study, intelligent life will generally die out due to planetary climate change, and this will happen quickly as all technological civilizations produce waste heat, making their planet increasingly uninhabitable. According to scientists' analysis, if energy consumption increases by 1% per year, the lifespan of the technological envelope will not exceed a few hundred years. If civilizations are rare and short-lived, they are difficult to detect, which may partly explain the Fermi Paradox.
Of course, this does not mean that we cannot detect signs of such civilizations, but it is possible that by the time we receive them, there will be no one to answer for. The keys to alien life may lie in seeing how they destroyed their planet before they died. The authors also suggest that advanced civilizations can extend their lives by finding a balance with their environment and reducing energy use. According to astrophysicist Manasvi Lingam, “If a species learns to live in harmony with its environment, it can survive for up to a billion years.”
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