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According to statistics, humans are most likely not alone in the universe.
Fermi's paradox can help us think about this possibility.
Alien civilizations may have already arisen, prospered, and become interplanetary,
given the abundance of stars expected to have planets like Earth,
where liquid water, life, and a moderate atmosphere, support life.
Aliens may find travelling to other universes
as simple as going from home to the nearest McDonalds.
If this is the case, we may not need to colonise faraway worlds in order to meet them.
They might make an attempt to contact us. It's both terrifying and intriguing to consider,
but how will aliens communicate with humanity? What would be the most effective manner for
a technologically advanced alien civilization to announce its arrival throughout the galaxy?
It could be to make its star system's planets dance in a mathematical sequence.
Many searches for intelligent life have been carried out thus far,
such as probing for radio signals or megastructures around stars,
but the results have been vague and have natural explanations.
That's why a scientist from France has proposed that we hunt for planets
orbiting in precise patterns that could only have evolved purposefully.
Their hypothesis is that a highly evolved civilisation
could alter the orbits of planets in its solar system
to serve as a beacon of its presence to an observer from the outside.
The gravitational pull of asteroids might be used to slowly move planets into new places over
thousands of years, causing them to have
full orbits relative to one another in a specific fixed ratio, or resonance.
Natural gravitational interactions produce such resonances.
For example, Jupiter's moon Io completes four Jupiter orbits
for every two Europa orbits and one Ganymede orbit,
forming a 2:1 resonance chain.
Similar patterns have been observed in other star systems,
although those in which the ratios of each body differ rather than creating chains,
have never been observed. As a result, the researchers
believe aliens may organise their planets in sequences that are unlikely to occur naturally,
such as a prime number series or the Fibonacci sequence.
The researchers calculated that these orbits may persist
for 20 billion years before losing resonance, even surviving the demise of their host star.
The concept is similar to colossal structures on Earth,
such as ancient Egypt's tallest pyramids,
which were built to last beyond the lifetime of a civilisation.
Similarly, this beacon has the potential to outlast its creators.
Even if we did uncover such a sequence, it wouldn't prove intelligent life,
and it's possible that the civilization behind it has long since vanished.
But the relics of it might still be found. What do you guys think!
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