Home > Its A Funny World
We Are Not Alone: It is ‘Virtually Impossible’ That There Isn’t Life Elsewhere in the Universe
FXDNMP 3d rendering of flying saucer ufo in the clouds.
May 3rd, 2016 | 08:59 AM | 1959 views
UNITED STATES
‘Are we alone in the universe?’ is perhaps the biggest question mankind has ever asked itself.
The human race has made big leaps and bounds in exploration in the last few decades but, as yet, we haven’t even been able to find anything close to advanced life.
And if you don’t believe that Roswell or other UFO sightings are a sign of extraterrestrial existence, it begs the question, will we every find it?
Well, two scientists believe they have developed an equation that suggests even if we don’t, it is virtually impossible that intelligent life hasn’t existed elsewhere.
The new paper, which has been published in Astrobiology, argues that the human race is unique if the chances of an advanced civilisation functioning on a planet is less than one in around 10 billion trillion.
‘One in 10 billion trillion is incredibly small,’ Adam Frank, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester and co-author of the paper told Science Daily.
‘To me, this implies that other intelligent, technology producing species very likely have evolved before us.
‘Think of it this way. Before our result you’d be considered a pessimist if you imagined the probability of evolving a civilization on a habitable planet were, say, one in a trillion.
‘But even that guess, one chance in a trillion, implies that what has happened here on Earth with humanity has in fact happened about a 10 billion other times over cosmic history.’
The equation was a reworking of something called the Drake equation – which is a half century old formula used to estimate how likely other advanced life is in the Milky Way.
The major difference with the new formula, developed by Frank and Woodruff Sullivan, is that it asks whether life has ever existed rather than is out there right now.
As mentioned, it also calculates the odds of us being alone in the universe rather than the odds that there is other intelligent life out there.
‘Our results imply that our biological, and cultural evolution has not been unique and has probably happened many times before,’ Frank said.
‘The other cases are likely to include many energy intensive civilizations dealing with crises on their planets as their civilizations grow.
‘That means we can begin exploring the problem using simulations to get a sense of what leads to long lived civilizations and what doesn’t.’
Source:
courtesy of METRO
by Toby Meyjes
If you have any stories or news that you would like to share with the global online community, please feel free to share it with us by contacting us directly at [email protected]