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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 HiThere on Tuesday September 10 2019, @08:53PM (2 children)
That theory has benefits, but it seems to assume that civilizations will continue to be based around planets, which seems to me dubious. And it doesn't explain the lack of "von Neuman machines" doing the exploring. I think a better question is "If they had been here, how would we know?".
Most people seem to be fantasizing about FTL spaceships, but they seem dubious to me. And something, be it a machine or a society, that is adapted to traveling for centuries, at the minimum, in interstellar space isn't going to be attracted to moving to a planet. Paying a short visit, perhaps, but even that's dubious.
FWIW, if they ARE biologically similar to us to the point of having life based on amino acids, I would expect that exposure to Earth's atmosphere would be likely to set off anaphylactic shock.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday September 10 2019, @09:17PM
I'd say that it's not a theory (in the scientific sense), but a hypothesis which cannot currently be tested.
As for vonNeumann machines, how do you know they don't exist?
A fair point. However, the hypothesis in the paper (that our area of the galaxy has enough "deserts" around our local, perhaps 100 cubic light-years, make exploration/colonization of our part of the galaxy unattractive). could explain why we haven't seen evidence any extra-solar visitors.
As for FTL, the *very* theoretical Alcubierre drive aside, it is, as you say, a fantasy. But given cosmological time scales, colonization (whether based in a gravity well or in space habitats) of significant portions of the galaxy is certainly a possibility (see the latter part of my reply to Takyon [soylentnews.org] for some thoughts on how that could happen).
What's more, travel might not be on the order of centuries at all. Each new settlement in a new star system would expand the range of further colonization, on the order of ten or so light-years.
That's entirely possible. Perhaps even likely. But it isn't relevant (IMHO) to the idea of leapfrogging star systems to colonize significant portions of the galaxy.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday September 10 2019, @11:22PM
I was thinking about this statement and it occurs to me (I'd have added this to my earlier reply, but I didn't think about it then) that it's not so much that civilizations are or will continue to be based around planets, but rather around the stars they orbit. The star can provide the energy required and the debris around it (generally referred to as planets/asteroids/comets/etc.) can provide raw materials to build livable habitats.
If a planet is/could be habitable, it could be used as such. However, it's just (and perhaps more) likely that a spacefaring civilization would be more interested in stable stars with a minimal radiation fluctuations and planets with stable orbits within its habitable zone than "habitable planets."
Colonization doesn't necessarily mean farms and fisheries on a planet with a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere. It could be just as effective with a (or, more likely tens of them) space-based habitat.
Given that interstellar travel will take decades even for relatively close stars, the technologies for space-based construction, life support and other basic living requirements would have been long addressed by any civilization with the capability to send living beings to other stars.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr