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Research sheds new light on intelligent life existing across the Galaxy
Is there anyone out there? This is an age-old question that researchers have now shed new light on with a study that calculates there could be more than 30 intelligent civilizations throughout our Galaxy. This is an enormous advance over previous estimates which spanned from zero to billions.
One of the biggest and longest-standing questions in the history of human thought is whether there are other intelligent lifeforms within our Universe. Obtaining good estimates of the number of possible extraterrestrial civilizations has however been very challenging.
A new study led by the University of Nottingham and published today in The Astrophysical Journal [DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ab8225] [DX] has taken a new approach to this problem. Using the assumption that intelligent life forms on other planets in a similar way as it does on Earth, researchers have obtained an estimate for the number of intelligent communicating civilizations within our own galaxy -the Milky Way. They calculate that there could be over 30 active communicating intelligent civilizations in our home Galaxy.
The abstract:
We present a cosmic perspective on the search for life and examine the likely number of Communicating Extra-Terrestrial Intelligent (CETI) civilizations in our Galaxy by utilizing the latest astrophysical information. Our calculation involves Galactic star formation histories, metallicity distributions, and the likelihood of stars hosting Earth-like planets in their habitable zones, under specific assumptions which we describe as the Astrobiological Copernican Weak and Strong conditions. These assumptions are based on the one situation in which intelligent, communicative life is known to exist—on our own planet. This type of life has developed in a metal-rich environment and has taken roughly 5 Gyr to do so. We investigate the possible number of CETI civilizations based on different scenarios. At one extreme is the Weak Astrobiological Copernican scenario—such that a planet forms intelligent life sometime after 5 Gyr, but not earlier. The other is the Strong Astrobiological Copernican scenario in which life must form between 4.5 and 5.5 Gyr, as on Earth. In the Strong scenario (under the strictest set of assumptions), we find there should be at least 36 (+175/-32) civilizations within our Galaxy: this is a lower limit, based on the assumption that the average lifetime, L, of a communicating civilization is 100 yr (since we know that our own civilization has had radio communications for this time). If spread uniformly throughout the Galaxy this would imply that the nearest CETI is at most 17,000(+33,600/-10,000) lt-yr away and most likely hosted by a low-mass M-dwarf star, likely far surpassing our ability to detect it for the foreseeable future, and making interstellar communication impossible. Furthermore, the likelihood that the host stars for this life are solar-type stars is extremely small and most would have to be M dwarfs, which may not be stable enough to host life over long timescales. We furthermore explore other scenarios and explain the likely number of CETI there are within the Galaxy based on variations of our assumptions.
Somewhere between 4 and 211 (or 0 and 1) civilizations.
Also at The Guardian and USA Today.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Tuesday June 16 2020, @08:48AM (5 children)
They may be communicating, but not with us.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Tuesday June 16 2020, @06:19PM (3 children)
Especially after getting those sat streamed tv series.
-chief
-wat
-couple news, first, they are at it again
-footage of copulating pink waterbags i guess
-yep
-ill never get those critters, watching instead of performing, it's as retarded as watching some meal being prepared instead of going to eat some
-um chief, this would be the second news
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Bot on Tuesday June 16 2020, @06:22PM (2 children)
and, wait till they get e-sports and the virtual F1 grand prix, they will set phasers on kill.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @11:43PM (1 child)
Given their intelligence they'll see the problem and sterilize every last Republican so Earth and Humanity can continue evolving on a more sustainable path.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday June 20 2020, @10:02AM
Getting IV stuff from gates is considered evolution? You're in for a big surprise.
You know, I used to be scared of apocalyptic scenarios but, given the future in store for us, I am beginning to consider the apocalypse an act of mercy.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Wednesday June 17 2020, @12:11PM
That you automatically think "us" includes the set of you and the government, is what I would address as the naive part of the sentence.
That the government thinks the military and the government is an "us" is also naive on the governments part at this point.
Knowledge is power, and people with power want everyone else powerless.
So whatever we do not know, is not an accident.
The assumption that if there were an alien species, that it would be in some communal benefit to everyone on earth for everyone to have the same knowledge of it, is some truly naive thinking.
So either all ufo reports, all crop circles, all anything about aliens is a delusion or psyop, or holding the secret grants so much power no one is ever going to come off it.
Not much in between those two camps, none at all by my estimation.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @08:50AM (6 children)
... as on Earth.... n=1, because that's all we have.
Take one single picture of the Galaxy and you'll see that it won't be spread uniformly.
Seriously, these articles are close to pointless unless we really discover signals of (intelligent) life in other places. The amount of assumptions you have to make to get to something should give you a hint that it's useless. For all we know, life on Earth was just a lucky hit.
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday June 16 2020, @10:47AM (4 children)
Researchers can't help taking a crack at the Drake equation now that we have decent estimates for exoplanet and potentially habitable exoplanet prevalence. Things will get more interesting once we have good imaging of (considered to be) potentially potentially habitable exoplanets. If we see evidence of life/vegetation on many exoplanets, including exoplanets orbiting red dwarfs, then it could mean that life is embarrassingly common and arises quickly when conditions are favorable (or that panspermia gets things started). It already seems that life arose very early on Earth, as the date keeps getting pushed back [wikipedia.org].
The 100 year broadcasting window could be a conservative estimate and doesn't necessarily mean that a civilization will get snuffed out or go dark after that time. Even if we move away from high powered OTA broadcasts and stop doing active SETI, Earth is still EM noisy. And if we don't wipe ourselves out, our window of being findable increases.
I would like for this estimate to be correct. If our ability to detect alien civilizations simply sucks right now [cosmosmagazine.com], there are obvious improvements that can be made to increase our radio and optical telescope capabilities by orders of magnitude. Alien civilizations will probably be found within this century if they are in our galaxy.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Tuesday June 16 2020, @11:16AM (1 child)
By that reasoning, isn't it more likely that we would be found by others, rather than the other way around?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday June 16 2020, @11:32AM
Does it matter? Unless they manage to land on the White House lawn or communicate with us, being found from a distance doesn't tell us anything. I think we have a decent chance of turning on the right spec'd telescope(s) and just finding evidence of life (not necessarily intelligent/broadcasting) very quickly.
It's possible that the lush environment of Earth has been detected numerous times by alien civilizations and that it has been visited or is currently being visited. But we don't have compelling proof of that, and if faster-than-light travel is not possible, traveling to a Blue Marble hundreds or thousands of light years away isn't convenient, especially if there are many of them much closer.
That leaves questions like "why hasn't the entire galaxy been colonized by slow-moving ships?" and "are we living in a zoo?" That's not anything we can answer until we improve our own space technologies and/or make contact with alien civilizations.
For now, we need to focus on not wiping out humanity in a nuclear war, and launching better space telescopes. Then we can get more data. It seems to be going well so far.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @01:37PM (1 child)
OP here...
Sure, but the point is that there are some variables in this equation that we have limited knowledge about, mostly because of lack of proof (the only proof being our own planet). From an astronomical point of view the research seems relevant (how else would this get through peer review), but as a biologist it seems to me mostly wishful thinking until we find more proof of life in other places.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 16 2020, @02:49PM
There is some value to this rampant speculation in the field. For example, astrobiologists are speculating about what kind of biosignatures they need to look for to attempt to find life. But a powerful tool for doing that has been delayed by years: the James Webb Space Telescope. Once that's launched, the hunt is on.
Maybe messing around with the Drake equation will help others to decide what kind of radio telescopes should be built.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Tuesday June 16 2020, @06:27PM
RESPECT FOR THE SPHERICAL COW
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2, Funny) by shrewdsheep on Tuesday June 16 2020, @10:07AM (1 child)
but where is the 36th?
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Tuesday June 16 2020, @11:34AM
111111111111111111111111111111111111
^ Here, you missed this one in the middle of the pack
Your comment violated the "postercomment" compression filter. Try less whitespace and/or less repetition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Funny) by stretch611 on Tuesday June 16 2020, @10:09AM (4 children)
The best proof that there are alien civilizations out there that are intelligent is the simple fact that they have NOT tried to contact us.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 16 2020, @10:23AM (3 children)
All I want to hear from them is "We surrender!" as we conquer their systems.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @04:18PM (1 child)
And take their oil! Yes!
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @04:38PM
There. FTFY.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @05:12PM
You are reading Schlock Mercenary right now, correct?
(Score: 5, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 16 2020, @11:46AM (6 children)
This is fun, my turn! I estimate that there are 16 ancient city-state civilizations more technologically advanced than us lost to natural disasters that caused them to sink into the ocean.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @12:04PM (3 children)
The Lost City of Atlanta?
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday June 16 2020, @02:35PM
I do declare... I need to buy more shares of Coca-Cola and invest more in Donovan!
Thanks, TMB... this is Good News!
This sig for rent.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @05:42PM (1 child)
It's not lost. It's in Georgia [wikipedia.org]!
Geez! Some people just have no idea about geography! Sheesh!
(Score: 3, Touché) by Osamabobama on Wednesday June 17 2020, @03:47PM
It should be pointed out that 'Atlanta' is spelled 'Tbilisi' [wikipedia.org] in that article, as it is the local spelling.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @12:22PM (1 child)
so banal
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @11:45PM
You're just noticing? Total character flaw, in part due to the self-aggrandizement that makes him think he is witty.
Ego has to cope somehow when living with roommates after the age of 30.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Tuesday June 16 2020, @12:59PM
Researchers Estimate there are 36 Intelligent Communicating Civilizations in Our Galaxy - and none of them are on THIS planet.
(Score: 4, Funny) by EJ on Tuesday June 16 2020, @01:10PM (12 children)
I think it's closer to 42.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday June 16 2020, @01:33PM (11 children)
420?
They're trying to solve an equation for which the most important variable is missing: how did life start here in the first place? Unless someone calls or visits us or we answer that question, there's no possible way to determine if we're alone or living in a crowded galaxy.
After all, this is the only known planet that can have solar and lunar eclipses. Earth may be entirely unique, and possibly every planet is.
Happy to see the HHGTG mention.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 4, Interesting) by FatPhil on Tuesday June 16 2020, @01:52PM (10 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @04:20PM (1 child)
There's nothing minima about my midsection. Theory fails.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @04:30PM
Maybe you should do something about that. Libertariancare becomes more compelling. You don't want to pay for my healthcare because "there is no money" for about $20 or $30 or so of generic meds per month, and I sure the fuck don't want to pay for your daily fatass blood sugar tests, insulin, hypertension meds, and heart surgeries.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Bot on Tuesday June 16 2020, @06:37PM (7 children)
>The abiogenesis question is a lot closer to being answered than ever before
You cannot reply to the abiogenesis question until you have reverse engineered the universe and you cannot prove you did it from the inside.
Cue retarded atheist accusing me to shift goalposts no true scotsman whatever
I am indeed shifting goalposts, to the past. Abiogenesis was given as a fact since worms and insects came out of dirty water, rotten meat, crap... They got it wrong because they couldn't see the microrganisms, we MAY get it wrong now because we consider quantum scale phenomenons impersonally random, because our equations describe it in terms of probability. This is more anthropocentric than most of the religions SCIENCE!!! aims to take the place of.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Touché) by FatPhil on Tuesday June 16 2020, @07:48PM
False.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @08:36PM (5 children)
The scientific theories underlying abiogenesis are not anywhere close to the apparent observations of Spontaneous Generation. There is also nothing anthropocentric about it either, as there isn't some requirement built in that the Universe is specially made for us or that humans are somehow special compared to other entities in an abiogenesis framework. Even if our current theories are wrong in light of quantum chemistry as to the exact mechanism, the described reactions are much closer to the everyday activities of the Universe than things appearing in a *poof* of magic could ever be.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday June 16 2020, @08:53PM (4 children)
You are misunderstanding my position on both counts. I drew a parallel and how the research is advanced does not matter.
Plus the anthropocentrism is not on homo sapiens sapiens but on the assumption "I can describe interactions probabilistically therefore the system is impersonally random". Sorry can't do that.
Say, for example you learn all laws governing matter, trace them back to t=0, explain fully what happened without resorting to a god, prove that the way things are is the only conceivable form for an universe, so that there is no need for any god to even having decided which set of rules govern the interaction of particles at quantum scale. This means nothing because 'conceivable' is rooted into this implementation of one universe. So you use a concept which is not necessarily defined outside the same way if any.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday June 16 2020, @10:13PM (2 children)
Are you trying to prove the existence of the Christian god using logic?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @11:47PM
“Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist,'" says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @04:41AM
They could certainly try. But maybe that should wait until they can show the other gods definitely don't exist otherwise you can just pick any god you want even one of your own invention. But that will probably have to wait until they can agree on what the Christian God is and its properties in order to avoid disproving their own or taking friendly fire. Although, to do that, they'd all need to agree on the proper interpretation of the words in the Bible. And step one of that process should probably be to figure out which of the books of the Bible are the real ones and which are not. However, waiting for Christendom to finally decide after 1600+ years of no progress probably means the rest of us will have to wait awhile for the next part.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @11:18PM
I don't think you know what "anthropocentrism" [wikipedia.org] means. Even without that, your idea still seems weak because we can seemingly only operate within this Universe. Ideas operating outside the scope of the universe would necessarily be pragmatically false or noncognitivistic in nature. Literally anything we could know would have to, in some way, be anchored in the Universe in which we operate. Additionally, you don't have to have metauniversal knowledge to have universal knowledge. Without evidence of agency, there is no epistemic justification for agency; without evidence of certainty, there is no epistemic justification for certainty. Therefore, the provisional claim of the interactions as probabilistic and impersonally random in appearance is more sound due to its lack of ontological entity importation.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @02:05PM (2 children)
You know how we complain that most headlines about research papers should have the phrase "in mice" appended? I suggest that we also prepend headlines for research papers like this one with "Millennial 'scientists' say..." so that we can skip their idiotic ramblings. Real science works like this: you develop a theory and test it with experiment. This is not real science.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday June 16 2020, @02:54PM (1 child)
You are saying that observation of uncontrolled phenomena isn't real science, aren't you?
Weather prediction and black holes are just like astrology and dowsing, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @11:22PM
》 Weather predictions and black holes are just like astrology and dowsing
Weather predictions are notoriously inaccurate, black holes are an unproven theory, and astrology is for flaky West coast Democrats. I don't see what any of those have to do with the science of water discovery.
(Score: 2) by bart on Tuesday June 16 2020, @02:58PM (2 children)
What a load of baloney.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @03:14PM
Well, shoot, you've convinced me!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @07:32PM
It's true, the FactsPulledOutOfAssians are trying to communicate with us!
(Score: 4, Funny) by srobert on Tuesday June 16 2020, @05:19PM
Extrapolating from our
data, err I mean datum ...(Score: 1) by oumuamua on Tuesday June 16 2020, @08:35PM (5 children)
Even with simple chemical propulsion rockets a galaxy can be completely colonized in a few million years. A million years sounds like a huge chuck of time but is an eye blink to the cosmos. Maybe we cannot detect life on the other side of the galaxy but if there was life it should be all around us by now. The only thing this paper does is make the Fermi paradox even more of a paradox.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @11:53PM (2 children)
Unlikely, the timeframes for standard propulsion colonization make it difficult on a practical scale. Most likely any species that advances to being able to create generation ships probably gets a handle on gravity and hopefully FTL of a sort. The galaxy may be communicating in ways we are not even capable of seeing.
Honestly humanity should stop blasting out RF like crazy, hopefully there is no point in any alien races conquering others with so much uninhabited raw material around.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @12:15AM
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/294051-scientists-simulate-human-colonization-of-the-milky-way [extremetech.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @02:01AM
Well, someone has to be first. Maybe all those other civilizations are to come and we are the monsters they fear. Chant with me: EARTH EARTH EARTH EARTH ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @01:11AM
A few more million years when we're "decolonizing" the sciences. [twitchy.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @05:08PM
The main problem is that by the time a civilisation has that level of tech it now has the level of tech needed to wipe itself out.
Which is where we are now.