Alien Civilizations May Number In The Trillions, New Study Says

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

You're right

Hypothetically we could have two dozen similar civilisations at greater distances than, say, 80ly away. If the maximum extent of their technological abilities is close to ours, we wouldn't be able to see them yet. If any were at pre-Industrial Age levels, they'll be invisible until our ability to analyse their atmospheres improves. This is optimism talking

Drake's Equation has always attracted unrealistic attention. Sometimes it's cited as *proof* of gazilions of advanced worlds and others use it to say no life out there. As you know, it's a fine attempt to rationalise the possibilities and probabilities and his equation has stayed relevant. Sure, some have added/removed values, but it's still his and still is a useful tool.

originally posted by: frenchfries
a reply to: roadgravel

1 ha , lightspeed 299792.458km/s and the endless space. Nothing can faster than light Einstain said. Lol and all the aliens obey. Somehow I believe that there are shortcuts... and the fundaments of nature aren't really that well understood.

Maybe.

Maybe there are ways to travel faster than light, and maybe there is not. We really don't know. There are hypotheses as to how FTL travel might be possible, but those are just hypotheses that are yet unproven.

Granted, Einstein's idea that light speed is the ultimate speed limit is just a theory, too...

...so that brings us back to "we don't know" if FTL travel is possible.

It is at least just as speculative to assume that it is possible to travel at FTL, and that ET civilizations have the ability to zip across the galaxy to visit us for a day-trip than it is for someone to claim that physics tells us it is impossible to travel at FTL speeds.

I find it weird why land animals breathe the same air as we do. How did they adapt to the air we breathe?

originally posted by: Kandinsky
and others use it to say no life out there.

I always wonder why people would assume there's no life beyond our own, we are one planet of billions and billions of planets, there are hundreds of thousands of different species past, present and potentially future on this planet, hell there's billions of just us on this planet.

If anything it proves that life is not as special as may want to believe it to be and if it can happen here, there's a fairly good chance of it happening elsewhere within those billion billion solar systems scattered throughout the universe

To put it in numbers, there's roughly 300billion stars in our galaxy, if only 10% had planets that would be 30 billion in our galaxy alone and there are over 100billion galaxies in just only what we can observe of the universe, 30billion x 100billion, just let that number sink in, you can't even get it to show the 0's on a calculator it's that immense.

And we're the only life out there ? Gimme a break

originally posted by: Blue Shift
Well, that just highlights the conundrum. The more civilizations you believe are out there, the harder it is to understand why we don't see any trace of them. Unless you're talking about hypothetical civilizations. Sure, there may be trillions of civilizations in some distant galaxy billions of light years away. But what's the difference between them and a completely fictional civilization? Essentially none.

Science is funny. On one hand, it will tell us that because of the basic laws of physics and chemistry the universe is likely filled with extraterrestrial life. On the other hand, it tells us that the universe is so incomprehensibly vast that the odds are very good that we'll never discover any of it.

No it doesn't; at all -- in any capacity. The solution to what you feel is a conundrum is actually grasping distance in space and also the progress of our current technology.

100 years ago; we didn't have cell phones, digital computers, electronics, 120 years ago we didn't even have paved roads or traffic lights, or consumer automobiles, people still rode horses, and if you had wealth; you rode in a wooden carriage pulled by multiple horses. Our technology is young and while it's the most advanced we've seen; is still not all that advanced as evidenced by the rapid growth of our technologies.

It's actually quite plain to see that there could be aliens in the closest star system; and we most probably don't have the technology required to detect them.

There is no conundrum.

I don't think technology is adequate to determine what a sentient being is. Try some of the GOD particle to get a glimpse behind the curtain.

Technology is just the first cry of a newborn species.

originally posted by: luciferslight
I find it weird why land animals breathe the same air as we do. How did they adapt to the air we breathe?

All land animals developed on a planet that has a certain kind of atmosphere, so of course we would all develop in such a way to be able to breathe that atmosphere. I mean, why would an animal develop that couldn't breathe?

By the way, Earth's atmosphere was once very different. Early Earth had very little oxygen, so the early life on Earth did not breathe oxygen -- and oxygen was in fact toxic to that life. As 100s of millions -- and even billions -- of years passed, our atmosphere slowly changed (through both biological and geological processes), and so did life slowly change to be able to adapt to that change in the atmosphere.

It's hard to imagine that humankind is just a blip in the timeline. Millions of alien civilizations have come and gone before us, and will come and go after us.

This gives A New Perspective on the things that we think are important day to day, doesn't it?

a reply to: Discotech

I've spent most of life assuming there's intelligent life 'out there.' Recent years have changed the perspective to pragmatism.

As far as we know, this is all there is. What we have right here is the only known life in the known universe. It makes sense that there ought to be others 'out there' and yet we can only go off available information.

It won't harm us to think we might be the first intelligence or even the only ones here and now. Maybe we'd collectively value the world we live on too?

I'm still hopelessly lost in the dream of finding evidence of life from other places. Some Arthur C Clark/Ben Bova circumstance of an object passing by our Solar System would be world-changing. Then again, a signature of artificial combustion in some light years distant exoplanet's atmosphere would be pretty cool too.

There'd be a poignancy in the latter.

a reply to: 727Sky

Is the Drake Equation even real? based on????
I do not doubt life throughout the universe.It does seem like some of them should have invented RADIO by now though!

a reply to: 727Sky
I'm not so sure this is just a way to confirm what others have always felt. Rather, I see this as just another way for the egocentric to preserve their ego. Look at what this article is actually saying. It's saying alien civilizations are common THROUGHOUT HISTORY, not necessarily at this moment. It's implying most don't survive long enough to discover the others. Since we haven't discovered other alien civilizations yet and we're at the doorstep of possibly doing that, we must be a slick bunch eh? We're still special, even with all these other alien civilizations, that's until we find some active ones.

So as I see it just another way to be important. My problem with that is hte race for importance is like speeding 80 mph on the countryside. All of the little things, the spiritual things, are lost in the blur. It's like you live by the gun you die by the gun. Live by the 80 mph blur you die by 80 mph blur. That spells trouble if and when we encounter superior alien civilization.

This article uses mathematics to assess how many alien civilizations have existed in the universe up until now and it is a large number because our universe is both incredibly large and incredibly old.

I would be interested in the number for our galaxy.

originally posted by: PDXEX
a reply to: 727Sky

Is the Drake Equation even real? based on????
I do not doubt life throughout the universe.It does seem like some of them should have invented RADIO by now though!

If our Milky Way galaxy is 115,000 light years across..... and there are civilizations on the other side of the galaxy... away from us... who started to transmit radio signals 15,000 years ago... all we have to do is wait another 100,000 years for those signals to reach us.. Space is big, huge, with distances, that some find it hard to fathom..even at light speed.

originally posted by: frenchfries
Still no official contact so what do we conclude ?

1.) Assuming a similar rate of development from planet formation to tech age, many may be at the same stage we are, able to look out but not go far,

2.) Some civs may have had internal conflicts that annihilated themselves. Ergo, extinct.

3.) No one's figured out how to cross the speed of light threshold and thus it takes a damn long time to get across the galaxy.

4.) Maybe it's like Star Trek out there in that someone's out exploring, mapping & cataloguing systems. Maybe we haven't been "discovered" yet.

5.) Maybe it's like Star Trek out there in that space-faring civs have an agreement not to muck with the less developed. Could be that their version of a Prime Directive says "Look, but don't contact. They're too stupid still."

oh ok

originally posted by: TinfoilTP
If all these theorized citvilizations came into being in the same era, third generation star systems for example, and they are spread out equally in the universe, then none of them has sent signals far enough into space for detection by others.

Either that or we are alone.

Earliest 3rd generations stars were 8.8 billions years ago. Our sun is about 4.5 billion years old. That's 4 billion years of potential for civilziations like our own preceding us. You don't think that's enough time for alien civilizations to form and create webs of communication for us to spot? The question isn't whether there's been enough time but whether those signals are still being sent millions and even billions of years after their source was created.

The furthest stars within our own galaxy's main body might be 60,000 light years away. So if an alien civilization was at one of those stars 60,000 years ago and sent a signal we should be receiving it now. This likely means if we detect something in our galaxy then it's a recent civilization within approx 60,000 years. It could also be a leftover beacon still actively sending signals. Any other signals sent in the history of this galaxy aren't detectable anymore because they already zipped by and are now traveling to other places.

If it's possible to detect signals from stars in other galaxies then it should be easy to eventually detect somebody, but they'll be so far away spatially and temporally it'll be like archeology. Still, what if those signals are science formulas or blueprints or similar? We might not need to meet them to get the benefits of their technology. If surviving in this universe is so damn hard it might be the case somebody somewhere launched a salvo of technological and scientific information into the cosmos.

It's tough to reconcile our need to communicate with each other to the idea of a universe prohibiting such activity betwene civilizations, either through extinction, signal fading or something else.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

It is at least just as speculative to assume that it is possible to travel at FTL

indeed... but that (FTL) is an speculation that might open endless possibilities. Physics nowadays acts like a policeagent for skeptics don't you think ? At the same time physics is ever changing and not even close to the fundaments of nature.

Darkmatter popping up in every theory yuck

a reply to: Nyiah

good one , The old arguments here my answer

1) Statistical deviation of about a biljon years and development of human civilization in 6000 years... multiplied by a triljon... So similar might be quite diverse just by statistical grounds only.

2) Just some and not all... that theory was spawn in the 80's. you know cold war and so... earth cold war so everyone in galaxy cold war....

3) How arrogant (human society not you no offense) We can't go faster than light trying for 100 years so they cant... (triljons of civilizations... trying of maybe miloons of years' Also there is timedilatation thanks to Einstain.... makes for a daytrip to the end of the universe in relative time. I would sign up in a jiffy (absolute earth time).

4) but ET would have discovered ET a long time ago ET*ET =?... exponential and not linear development... even at sublight speed there should have been contact by now , not a single ET searching for live but a myriad.

5) For me still the only option... They Closed the doors for those pesky humans. They control disclosure and they dont want us out there whilst patrolling earth and abduction peggy sue's , keeping us busy with wars , sjws smartphones and fidget spinners.

Trillions, or zero, it's pretty irrelevant to us honestly. Even if we aren't alone in the universe, for all intents and purposes we are alone. Even if somehow aliens are visiting Earth, if they don't wish to reveal themselves, they may as well not exist.

Aliens could have contacted our governments 50 years ago. Our governments might have been preparing us for the eventual fact some time from now. An advanced species might not invade our skies and act hostile by invading public air space where everyone sees their ships. Our own governments might have said that would cause panic.

I thought I heard if a similar Earth like civilization was nearby, say only 30 light years away, it's doubtful we would have picked up the radio signals because the signal strength gets so weak with distance that it takes our biggest radio antennas just to keep in contact with our own probes on the edge of our solar system. Someone can say this is wrong but it's what I remember. Now if a species like us sent an intentional high intensity beam towards a certain star system like our own, we might detect it.

From what I remember , many parts of the Drake equation were unknown such as how long the tech phase lasts before the species nukes itself out of existence possibly. Our own species might be almost wiped out less than 50 years from now. We don't know how long a technology civilization lasts.

As far as not detecting lots of signals, another possibility is that a more advanced form of communication no longer uses radio waves but advanced directed pulses of light directed specifically at a receiver with no signal loss. The resulting communication signals might be undectable to others. Another possibility is that an advanced civilization develops quantum communication where no known signals travel through space that other alien civilizations could detect. Another possibility could be communication is done via telepathy in advanced species. We would not detect these communications either.

The exciting thing is that even using really lower than estimated numbers such as saying there are only 12 other intelligent civilizations in this galaxy, that number would be exciting when we come in contact with them whether that is thousands of years from now or we already have but it's top secret because our governments like control over all of us.

Another possibility is that other alien civilizations might think pollution is horrible and that sending radio signals all over space for possible enemies to detect them is a horrible idea. If we were a more fearful species worried about being detected, laws might have been passed restricting radio signals so we aren't easily detected. The Borg might be looking for us.