Why can't we see evidence of alien life?

somewhere obtainable in that massive universe,

there need to without a doubt be infinite different planets teeming with existence,

but why do not we see any evidence of it?

properly, that is the well-known question requested through Enrico Fermi in 1950:

"where is each person?"

Conspiracy theorists claim that UFOs are traveling all the time

and the reviews are simply being covered up,

however certainly, they aren't very convincing.

but that leaves a actual riddle.

in the past year, the Kepler area observatory

has discovered masses of planets simply round close by stars,

and if you extrapolate that facts,

it looks as if there will be half 1000000000000 planets

just in our own galaxy.

If any individual in 10,000 has situations that could aid a form of life,

it truly is nevertheless 50 million possible existence-harboring planets

right right here inside the Milky way.

So here's the riddle.

Our Earth failed to form

till approximately 9 billion years after the big Bang.

endless different planets in our galaxy must have fashioned in advance

and given existence a threat to get underway

billions or certainly many tens of millions of years

in advance than came about on earth.

If only a few of them had spawned intelligent existence

and commenced creating technology,

those technologies would have had millions of years

to develop in complexity and strength.

on the earth,

we've visible how dramatically generation can boost up

in only one hundred years.

In hundreds of thousands of years, an intelligent alien civilization

could without difficulty have unfold out across the galaxy,

possibly developing massive electricity-harvesting artifacts,

or fleets of colonizing spaceships,

or superb works of art that fill the night sky.

not less than, you'll think that they had be revealing their presence,

deliberately or in any other case,

thru electromagnetic signals of one type or some other.

And yet we see no convincing evidence of any of it.

Why?

properly, there are numerous possible solutions,

a number of them quite dark.

maybe a single, superintelligent civilization

has certainly taken over the galaxy,

and has imposed strict radio silence

because it's paranoid of any capacity competition.

it's just sitting there ready to obliterate

anything that will become a chance.

Or perhaps they are not that shrewd.

Or perhaps, the evolution of an intelligence

able to creating sophisticated era

is far rarer than we've assumed.

in spite of everything,

it is most effective passed off once in the world

in four billion years.

maybe even that turned into pretty lucky.

maybe we are the first such civilization in our galaxy.

Or, possibly, civilization incorporates with it

the seeds of its own destruction

via the inability to control the technology it creates.

but there are numerous greater hopeful answers.

For a start, we're no longer searching that tough,

and we are spending a pitiful amount of money on it.

only a tiny fraction of the celebs in our galaxy

have really been looked at carefully for signs of interesting alerts.

And possibly, we are now not searching the proper manner.

perhaps as civilizations expand,

they quick discover conversation technologies

far more sophisticated and beneficial than electromagnetic waves.

maybe all of the movement takes location

within the mysterious lately determined darkish count,

or darkish energy,

that appear to account for maximum of the universe's mass.

Or perhaps we're looking at the wrong scale.

possibly wise civilizations come to comprehend

that lifestyles is in the long run just complicated patterns of facts

interacting with each different in a beautiful manner,

and which could manifest greater successfully at a small scale.

So simply as on this planet, clunky stereo systems have gotten smaller to lovely, tiny iPods,

maybe sensible life itself,

so that it will lessen its footprint on the environment,

has grew to become itself microscopic,

so the sun gadget is probably teeming with aliens,

and we're just no longer noticing them.

maybe the very thoughts in our heads are a shape of alien existence.

nicely, k, it's a crazy idea.

The extraterrestrial beings made me say it.

however it is cool that ideas do appear to have a existence all in their own,

and that they outlive their creators.

perhaps organic existence is just a passing phase.

nicely, inside the next 15 years,

we should begin seeing actual spectroscopic facts

from promising nearby planets

as a way to monitor simply how existence-pleasant they might be.

And meanwhile SETI,

the search for more-Terrestrial Intelligence,

is now liberating its records to the public

so that hundreds of thousands of citizen scientists, perhaps which includes you,

can carry the electricity of the crowd to join the quest.

And here on earth, incredible experiments are being accomplished

to try to create existence from scratch,

existence that might be very one-of-a-kind from the DNA bureaucracy we recognise.

All of this could help us apprehend

whether or not the universe is teeming with existence

or, whether or not certainly,

it is simply us.

both solution, in its own manner,

is awe-inspiring,

because even if we are on my own,

the truth that we assume and dream,

and ask those questions

would possibly yet emerge as one of the maximum vital facts

approximately the universe.

And i've one more piece of excellent news for you.

the hunt for knowledge and know-how in no way receives dull.

It would not. it's actually the other.

The more you understand,

the greater remarkable the sector seems.

And it's the loopy possibilities, the unanswered questions,

that pull us ahead.

So, live curious.