THEDAILYNET.COM / BEST OF THE INTERNET

Researchers analyze the chances of alien life in our galaxy to come to a realistic conclusion

A new paper analyzed the Fermi Paradox from a new angle and talked about the "simplest explanation" about existence of alien civilizations around us.

BY SUNAYNA KANJILAL

UPDATED JUL 18, 2024

(L) Venus and Earth | (R) Faraway Galaxies Spotted by James Webb Telescope | NASA Handout | Getty Images

A lot of people staring into the cosmos through the night sky have wondered if human beings are the only species of their kind in the entire universe, and this speculation as also given rise to a number of theories, literature, and movies, ever since space exploration told us more about what lies beyond the horizon. With the possibility of life on planets in other galaxies and UFO sightings recorded over the years, the discussion on alien civilizations has gained traction.

On the flipside, there is the Fermi Paradox which shines light on the discrepancy between the lack of conclusive proof of any intelligent extraterrestrial life and the apparent high probability of its existence. According to NASA the eerie silence of the cosmos is the Fermi Paradox, which is a term first coined after Enrico Fermi famously asked, "Where is everybody?

Sunset over the Earth with Venus near the centre of the frame, as captured by crew members on board Orbiter Vehicle 104 | Getty Images | Space Frontiers

A new paper examined the paradox from a new angle and talked about the "simplest explanation" that we are entirely or almost the only intelligent civilization in our galaxy.

The research began with a thought experiment which was proposed by physicist Edwin Jaynes back in 1968. Imagine you enter a laboratory and see a line of large beakers filled with water, now you will need to imagine placing "substance X" in them and see it dissolve.

In this scenario, you would be expecting the substance to either dissolve nearly every single time or not at all. Now, if it were to dissolve about half the time, that would suggest that tiny variations in temperature and the pressure in the lab were powerful enough to affect the outcome and that the conditions had been perfectly tuned for the substance to dissolve. The study suggests that the same reasoning can used to look for intelligent alien life.

"Consider an ensemble of Earth-like planets across the cosmos - worlds with similar gravity, composition, chemical inventories, and climatic conditions," the paper states. "Although small differences will surely exist across space (like the beakers across the laboratory), one should reasonably expect that life either emerges nearly all of the time in such conditions, or hardly ever. As before, it would seem contrived for life to emerge in approximately half of the cases - again motivated from the fine-tuning perspective," as explored by Cool Worlds.

The pessimism around extraterrestrial life has also been covered in the famous Drake Equation. The equation which was formulated by Frank Drake back in 1961 summarizes the main factors that scientists must take into account when considering how many communicative civilizations humanity can get in touch with. This includes the rate at which stars are formed, the stars which can have planets, planets around each of those stars that can support life, planets where intelligent life can emerge, the number of those civilizations intelligent enought o communicate and the time that they would take to reach out to humanity.

According to Nasa, the conclusion is still extremely bleak. While they have found thousands of planets in the Milky Way galaxy, which are similar to Earth and orbiting in their stars' "habitable zones", the distance from the star at which liquid water could exist on surface, the scientists are still looking at empty masses. "For the moment, we're staring into the void, hoping someone is staring back," as per NASA.