From the potential for more than one alien society to live in the Milky Way Galaxy, to
the proof that they might just be out there waiting for us.
Join us as we explore the fact that There may be more than 36 Alien Civilizations In
The Milky Way!
If intelligent life is out there...why haven't they found us yet?
Or why haven't we found them yet?
This is the crux of something known as the Fermi Paradox.
A scientific and even philosophical question that dares to ask the question of WHY we haven't
found alien civilizations in one form or another.
Granted, humanity has happily "showed" what it COULD be like to meet them via television
shows, movies, cartoons, comics and novels and more.
But in term of definitive proof we don't have it...yet.
Over the course of human history there have been many "sightings" or "proof" that aliens
might be out there.
This is why Area 51 is such a pop culture item as well as a real-life one because we
know the base is there, and yet we don't know what's inside it.
Thus, it MUST be the place where aliens are being kept, or so some people believe.
The other thing to note here is that the sightings of aliens or alien craft is not new or even
recent.
If you look back at paintings going back centuries or ancient texts or drawings on caves you'll
see references to beings and craft that clearly weren't from our world, yet someone had the
image in the sights to draw about it or write it down.
But the irony, the true irony is that we may be closer to these alien civilizations than
we previously believed, as they could be right here in the Milky Way Galaxy.
According to a new study, there could be more than 30 civilizations capable of long-distance
communication here in the Milky Way.
This work, led by researchers at the University of Nottingham, assumed that intelligent life
not only exists off-Earth, but develops on other planets similarly to how it does on
Earth.
"There should be at least a few dozen active civilizations in our galaxy under the assumption
that it takes 5 billion years for intelligent life to form on other planets, as it did on
Earth," Christopher Conselice, an astrophysicist at the University of Nottingham who led this
research, said in a statement.
"The idea is looking at evolution, but on a cosmic scale."
This is a very unique way of looking at things, and many would see this as an "evolution"
of thought in regards to alien life.
Various institutions, including NASA and other space agencies, have accepted that alien life
COULD be out there, but obviously hadn't found proof of it yet.
But what if they were just looking at it in the wrong way?
Could this study be the proof we need that aliens do exist?
Well that's a tricky question, and it brings up the question of what this team at Nottingham
did to try and figure out how many civilizations could be out there the Milky Way.
To estimate the number of intelligent civilizations in our galaxy, the team took into account
two major "Astrobiological Copernican limits", or conditions that such an "intelligent" civilization
would depend on.
For one of these limiting factors, the researchers used Earth, where life began approximately
4.54 billion years ago, as an example.
They assumed that intelligent life most likely forms in less than 5 billion years.
Again, using Earth as a baseplate which is fair given the context of this study.
The other factor that they figured into their study was that of the stars around the planets
life could be on.
They estimated that a planet with intelligent life would orbit a star like our sun (again,
Earth as the template).
This sun-like star would have "a metal content equal to that of the sun … (the sun is relatively
speaking quite metal-rich)," Tom Westby, an assistant professor at the University of Nottingham
and first author on the paper said in the same statement.
In addition to these two Astrobiological Copernican limiting criteria, the scientists factored
in technological capability.
The researchers figured that the number of "intelligent" civilizations depends on technological
prowess, specifically how long they have been sending out some sort of signal into space
(anything from radio transmissions from orbiting satellites to television).
So, using our civilization as an example for a potential extraterrestrial one, the researchers
estimated that humans have been "technologically advanced" for about 100 years.
Which if you think about it is actually kind of fair.
If you look at our world right now, we're reveling in technology, but go back to 1920?
Not so much.
It was the beginning of the roaring twenties sure, but various technological equipment
for communication hadn't been invented or perfected yet.
They were still growing, and it would be for many decades that the conveniences that we
have now would be made manifest and plentiful.
So assuming that various civilizations in space had similar upbringing, we'd need to
look at the last 100 years out in space.
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Getting back to the civilizations, once they programmed this criteria into their study
and looked amongst the stars and planets in the Milky Way Galaxy, they found themselves
with a "definitive" number that might come off as shocking.
"We calculate that there should be around 36 active civilizations in our galaxy," Westby
said.
However, the average distance to these alien worlds would be approximately 17,000 light-years,
so much too far for humans to contact with existing technologies, according to the researchers.
"The classic method for estimating the number of intelligent civilizations relies on making
guesses of values relating to life, where opinions about such matters vary quite substantially,"
Westby said, referring to "values relating to life" like proximity to a sun-like star.
Despite the new estimate, the researchers acknowledge it's still very possible that
we could be alone: If other broadcasting civilizations exist, they might not survive for as long
as humankind has and so we might not exist at the same time.
"If we find that intelligent life is common, then this would reveal that our civilization
could exist for much longer than a few hundred years; alternatively, if we find that there
are no active civilizations in our galaxy, it is a bad sign for our own long-term existence.
By searching for extraterrestrial intelligent life — even if we find nothing — we are
discovering our own future and fate," Conselice said.
Many would argue that this is a very grim view of things, but science is not meant to
be light or dark, just factual.
Which is why the study of potential life on planets is so important to many.
Because they see this as an avenue to not just find out what's amongst the stars, but
paint a picture to what humanity really is in the galactic scale and what our future
might just be.
But let's ask the obvious question.
How much credit should we put into this particular study and its findings?
To be blunt?
Not as much as you might expect.
This is because of a very simple reason, the entire basis of the study is not to just find
life on other planets that may exist in the solar system, but to try and "predict" that
based on a single assumption: that everything happens the same as it did on Earth.
But that right there is a key and fundamental problem in the eyes of many.
Including an article by Forbes that straight-up blasts this "finding" by the Nottingham team.
Focusing on the scientific nature of things for our particular argument, while it's somewhat
fair to try and reason that things on Earth would happen elsewhere in the universe, to
apply that to a whole galaxy is foolish, not to mention...not very scientific.
If for no reason than thus, at present, we can definitively say that there is no other
planet like Earth in the galaxy...that we know of.
Which we can because there have been YEARS of research and exploration to try and FIND
another Earth.
Now, there have been Earth-like planets found, plenty of them in fact.
Some are so close to Earth in certain facets that it's believed that not only COULD they
hold life, but we COULD live there if we were to reach them.
But every single one of those planets has a key problem or difference that makes it
unlike our own planet.
Whether it be atmosphere, the star that it orbits around, the composition of the planet
and more.
So to assume that an alien civilization exists because of how we were born on our planet
is foolish because we don't know the planets that these civilizations are being "born on"
and how they survive on them.
Which is another point of contention to bring up.
It's widely believed that humanity evolved from the various creatures that were on the
Earth before us.
We went from single-celled creatures, to multi-celled creatures, to beings of the sea, to beings
of the land and air, and eventually, to humanoids.
One cannot assume that this would happen the same way, on the same path, and in the same
state of play on other planets that already aren't like Earth.
And not for the reasons you might think.
If you look at the history of Earth as a whole, you're going to see various "extinction-level
events".
Ones that wiped out a large part of the population of Earth in terms of life for various reasons.
You know of one in regards to the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.
But another is "The Great Oxygenation", where Oxygen was introduced into our atmosphere
at such levels that many creatures died out because they weren't used to it.
On another planet, Oxygen might not even be an option, or it may be the only option, we
don't know.
Add that to the fact that these extinction events basically rewrote the Earth, and you
can't say that life will happen to the levels of humans in 4.5 billions years because those
numbers are taking into account the extinction level events.
What if a planet in the galaxy DIDN'T have any extinction-level events.
That's hundreds of millions of years of growth without hindrance or setbacks.
Another problem with this study is the belief that life would evolve over time in technology
the same way that humans did.
But that in and of itself is faulty because it's impossible to know what kind of technology
they can build, or the intelligence of the civilizations to construct it.
Look at series like Star Trek, Star War, or Babylon 5.
Each of these series showed that while humans were advanced in technology, certain species
were FAR beyond them, and had existed at times billions of years before they did.
For all we know, there are planets out there that are already doing space travel, or have
colonized other planets.
Likewise, there could be humanoid life out there that are right now where we were hundreds
of years ago.
Using basic tools and weapons to construct their civilizations.
As such, their "long-term communications" wouldn't be "available" for some time to come.
For the record, we're NOT saying that this study is 100% wrong.
It's more of a case of them being a bit too ambitious for what they're stating.
If they had said around 10 civilizations are out in the Milky Way it would've been a hard
pill to swallow.
But 36?
That's stretching and making many wild guesses in order to get to that number.
Now, should they be right?
And should definitive proof that these civilizations are out there?
That would obviously rewrite everything that we know about our world, galaxy, and universe.
Because if there are 37 (including us) civilizations in our own galaxy, what could be out there
in the wider universe?
But then again, focusing back on the Fermi Paradox, if they are out there, why haven't
we found them yet?
The answer may lie in distance, in which the team noted that we might be 17,000 light years
away from the next civilization that is closest to us.
But even then, we here on Earth are able to see things across galaxies, and even into
the wider universe, so why couldn't they be seeing us?
And sending signals that far may be a tricky thing for us on Earth, but that doesn't mean
that it is for them on the other planets.
As you can see, this is a very complicated issue for a whole host of reasons.
Finding intelligent life on other planets is something many people honestly want to
do, for knowledge, for understanding, and just to prove that we aren't alone.
But the problem is that we are so limited in what we can do that we're just guessing
at times with what is beyond our own solar system.
Even recent findings with the Voyager probes proves we barely know what's outside our own
front door, so to make guesses about the galaxy at times can get us in serious trouble.
Will we ever truly find alien life?
That is a question that many are debating to this day.
Could we find life out there?
Absolutely.
Will we?
We don't know.
What will it be like if we do find it?
That's a question only the people of Earth can answer...if it was to happen.
But for now, we can dream and wonder about what those potential 36 civilizations are
like.
What they resemble, what technology they have, and more.
And maybe, just maybe, the Fermi Paradox will finally be answered.
Thanks for watching everyone!
What did you think about this study that thinks there are 36 civilizations out there in the
Milky Way Galaxy?
Do you think they're correct in this assumption, or are they way off?
How do you personally feel about the potential for alien life being out there?
Let us know in the comments below, be sure to subscribe, and I'll see you next time on
the channel!