Alien

Jan 3 2021

Intelligent life in the Milky Way is slowly dying out

Mankind is pretty late and pretty far out. That's the conclusion of a study that statistically examines the development of intelligent life in the Milky Way. In it, the authors look at a whole range of factors that they think influence the evolution of intelligent life, such as the frequency of Sun-like stars hosting Earth-like planets, the frequency of civilization destroying supernovas, the length of time it takes for intelligent life to evolve (if conditions are right), and the tendency of advanced civilizations to self-destruct. The researchers incorporated these factors, with varying values, into a simulation of the Milky…

Here we are: a signal for extraterrestrial civilizations

Would it be possible to alert extraterrestrial civilizations to our presence in the universe? Yes, says a feasibility study that was carried out by MIT doctoral candidate, James Clark, and was published in The Astrophysical Journal. Clark combined two already available technologies: a strong laser with an output power of 1 or 2 MW, similar to, for example, the U.S. Air Force’s Airborne Laser, and a large telescope with 30-meter (100-feet) or 45-meter (150-feet) optics, like those already in construction. (more…)

When can we be certain that we’re the only civilization in the galaxy?

Are we alone in the universe? Most science-fiction authors would answer that question with a no. Scientists, however, aren’t so sure. SETI projects, such as Breakthrough Listen, have not produced any clear results, at least not yet. But assume we search and search and search – and find nothing. Will there come a moment when we can say with some certainty that we are alone in the universe – and can stop searching? Yes, says Claudio Grimaldi from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne; EPFL). In a paper in PNAS, he calculated when…