Where is everybody?

[Ming the Merciless]

Fermi's paradox.

I have just read this startling statement



"Kepler's discoveries suggest that about 20 percent of the Milky Way's sun-like stars host an Earth-sized world in the "habitable zone" — that just-right range of orbital distances that would allow you to walk around in flip-flops pretty much year-round. The proportion appears to be similar for red dwarfs, the small, dim stars that dominate our galaxy. (About 75 percent of Milky Way stars are red dwarfs, whereas just 10 percent or so are similar to our sun.) "

 

[classic33]

Possible they don't want to make it known they are out there.

 

[Drago]

Thats a good point. Is it that technologically advanced civilisations have a short lifespan? Is it that they use tight beam radio transmissions or even lasers, so their emissions are undetectable? Could it be we are the first? I think Dr Alice Roberts should appear on telly to give us the answer.

 

[Beebo]

Space is too big and too old for us to meet with other life forms.

Our window of existence is tiny on the scale of the Universe.

And even travelling at light-speed isn’t much use across vast areas of space.

Most of what we see as light from
Stars coming to earth now no longer even exists as it happened many millions of years ago.

 

[Levo-Lon]

Who'd want to travel to this rock and meet us?

I'd think we're the laughing stock of the galaxy.

 

[classic33]

View attachment 442414

Space is too big and too old for us to meet with other life forms.

Our window of existence is tiny on the scale of the Universe.

And even travelling at light-speed isn’t much use across vast areas of space.

Most of what we see as light from
Stars coming to earth now no longer even exists as it happened many millions of years ago.

Where would the two Voyager craft be on that picture?

 

[Beebo]

Where would the two Voyager craft be on that picture?

That dot is 200 light years.

Voyager 1 is just over 20 light hours away. So not even a single light day. That blue dot is 73,000 lights days wide.

 

[matiz]

With billions of galaxy's and more stars out there than grains of sand on earth it's odds on there's some sort of life out there, that's without the other possible dimensions it hurts ones brain to even think about it.

 

[Jenkins]

I prefer Douglas Adams' explanation

It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

There is speculation they communicate with Neutrinos but we are too dumb to recognise the messages they are sending.

 

[Illaveago]

Thats a good point. Is it that technologically advanced civilisations have a short lifespan? Is it that they use tight beam radio transmissions or even lasers, so their emissions are undetectable? Could it be we are the first? I think Dr Alice Roberts should appear on telly to give us the answer.

I wonder how many of those planets have Dr Alice Roberts lookalikes on them ?

 

[PeteXXX]

What if the aliens had 4 legs?
Would they walk around in flip flop flip flops??

 

[lazybloke]

I don't doubt there's plenty of life out there, but the ability to communicate (or to travel) across the cosmos is a huge challenge. I doubt we'll manage it before dying out due to war, famine, disease, etc. It's almost inevitable, given the rate at which we're consuming the limited resources of this planet.

Anyway, has intelligent life been found on Earth yet?

 

[NightCruiser]

Anyway, has intelligent life been found on Earth yet?

Sure, plenty, but unfortunately these individuals are usually controlled by powerful idiots who aren't interested in a better world!

 

[nickyboy]

It's taken billions of years for life on Earth to develop to the extent it can think about whether there's life on other planets and listen for it
How long will life exist on Earth? No idea but it might be a few thousand years. Even a few million years is tiny in terms of Earth's development
So the window is extremely narrow. The chances of our window coinciding with another planet's window is really small. Almost all other planets life either won't have developed as much as us or will have consumed it's resources and disappeared