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Anonymous Coward writes:
https://www.businessinsider.com/alien-civilizations-may-have-already-colonized-galaxy-study-2019-8
The Milky Way could be teeming with interstellar alien civilizations — we just don't know about it because they haven't paid us a visit in 10 million years.
A study published last month in The Astronomical Journal[$] posits that intelligent extraterrestrial life could be taking its time to explore the galaxy, harnessing star systems' movement to make star-hopping easier.
The work is a new response to a question known as the Fermi paradox, which asks why we haven't detected signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.
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Fermi Paradox Paper: Aliens Could Take Their Time Settling the Galaxy
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(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday September 10 2019, @08:21PM (1 child)
We currently have stars coming closer to us [wikipedia.org]. If we can barf humans at those stars, they will eventually be carried tens or hundreds of light years away from Earth, and they can spread to other nearby stars. Given enough time, the galaxy is ours. Or somebody's.
It is a big galaxy though, with a mass / number of stars that has been revised upwards [skyandtelescope.com]. Maybe there are pockets of pristine galaxy waiting to be conquered.
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(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday September 10 2019, @08:58PM
Absolutely. And if it weren't for the risk of Kuru [wikipedia.org], I'd offer to barf such humans up myself.
As you're well aware, there are significant challenges to human (and alien) interstellar spaceflight, like constant boost drives, using ambient hydrogen for fuel, efficient life support systems, appropriate shielding at such high velocities, etc., etc., etc.
However, those are mostly (note I said "mostly") engineering issues rather than ones of basic science. As such, it seems likely that such voyages will be possible in the (not so near) future.
Constant acceleration at 1G (9.8m/s2) approaches the speed of light in less than a year. With initial acceleration at 1G, coasting and then decelerating at 1G, would take ~10-15 years to Alpha Centauri.
With future advances in living/collecting raw materials/construction/engineering in space, it would also be possible to build space/asteroid/moon based colonies where there are no habitable planets, thus extending the range of colonization each time such a colony (space-based or on a habitable planet) is established.
I'm just sorry I wasn't born in an era where this could be accomplished.
The paper referenced by TFA gives an interesting and nuanced counterpoint to the Fermi Paradox. Are the hypotheses in the paper correct? We don't have nearly enough data or the means to collect such data to confirm or refute them. As such, it's all just speculation (as is the Fermi Paradox, I'd add).
But it is quite interesting, IMHO.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr