In our galaxy alone, there are potentially millions of habitable planets. Perhaps hundreds of billions throughout the universe. However, despite all these opportunities for life to develop, there is currently not a shadow of an extraterrestrial civilization on the horizon. An intractability known to scientists as the Fermi Paradox.
“But where are they all?”, This is the question PhysicistPhysicist One morning in 1950, the Italian genius would have launched his colleagues at Los Alamos National Laboratory (USA). Our Milky Way. That’s a long time for a human being. But very short on the scale of our universe – which, as a reminder, is about 13.6 billion years old.
We are truly alone in the universe.
So AstronomersAstronomers Continue searching for the answer to the question. And then in 2024, they worked on some hypotheses. One of them, the fastest, was already developed by one in 1975 AstronomerAstronomer American, Michael H. Hart. If, despite the deployment of resources, we have found no sign of the existence of an intelligent extraterrestrial civilization, it is… because there is no intelligent extraterrestrial civilization! L’IntelligenceIntelligence will be extremely rare. And our universe will eventually not be large enough to see the possibility of an advanced civilization other than ours becoming prominent.
A few weeks ago, a team came to a similar conclusion. By studying the effect of Dark matterDark matter on the universe. Calculations show that the maximum density of dark energy in a universe would allow 27% of normal matter to be converted. The starsThe stars. However, in our universe, only 23% of the matter is converted into stars. Fewer stars means less chance of seeing life emerge. And even less so, intelligence.
And maybe it’s not so bad.
For some, the idea that humanity is alone in the vastness of our universe is hard to accept. But for others, such as the Chinese author Leo JacksonLeo Jacksonit will be a blessing. His theory “Black Forest” In fact, in order to survive and thrive in a universe with clearly limited resources, an extraterrestrial civilization would have no choice but to exterminate others. one by one And above all not to reveal its presence. A perplexing answer to the Fermi paradox.
We live in a kind of “lifeless hole”.
Astronomer Adam Frank asked the question a little differently. With his team, he studied the dynamics of a single, hypothetical extraterrestrial civilization that would conquer Earth. The Milky WayThe Milky Way A few ships would depart from their home planet, settling on the first planet they found further away before moving on. Simulations confirm that it would take no more than a few hundred thousand years to populate our entire galaxy in this way. However, when the researchers introduced an additional factor, they produced “dead hole” Holes in the Milky Way that can remain empty for long periods of time. And the factor is that civilizations, whatever they are, are not eternal. At one time or another, there is always a war, a A global pandemicA global pandemic Or a star explosion SupernovaSupernova. Then this is the end. Waiting for others to come and settle the place…
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The great filter argument was first elaborated in the late 1990s by American economist Robin Hanson. Idea: Few, if any, civilizations in our universe reach the stage of space conquest. At some point in the history of life, life stops in its tracks. Perhaps when the development of intelligence. Maybe again a little later.
If our solar system is in one of these isolated pockets, it could very well explain why we have yet to be seen by any extraterrestrial civilization. It also suggests that one of them might already be on its way to our Earth.
Technological progress does not respect nature enough
What if extraterrestrial civilizations exist and they can’t – or don’t want to – come to us? This is also a pathway discovered in the 1970s by Michael H. Hart, a physicist at the CNRS, as the most likely explanation for the Fermi paradox. Because, according to them, “Life creates a kind of acceleration that creates extreme instability.”. Realize that any developing civilization will exhaust the resources at its disposal before it is able to implement interstellar travel. A bit like we’re (badly) exemplifying today.
“Describe a strategy that would allow humanity to advance technological progress, more respectful of nature and its laws, so that perhaps, within a few decades to a century, we could explore other planetary systems. Be that as it may, the Fermi contradiction seems more impossible to me every day, but we haven’t lost it yet.”assured Gabriel Chardin in the Journal du CNRS almost ten years ago.
Laws of The bodyThe body It can only prevent space civilizations from conquering space. Imagine, for example, that life evolved on a Super EarthSuper Eartha planet whose On a large scaleOn a large scale 10 times larger than ours. Astronomers confirm that these types of planets can be habitable. But to launch a rocket from a super-Earth, an extraterrestrial civilization would have to make superhuman efforts. Overcoming gravity far beyond our planet. Enough to explode the costs of space travel.
A few months ago, researchers proposed a new hypothesis to explain the Fermi paradox. As we are doing on our Earth, extraterrestrial civilizations, through their technological activities, can make their planet uninhabitable. According to their calculations, DurationDuration of the life of a TechnologyTechnology Not more than 1,000 years old.
So the chances of aliens self-destructing before they have a chance to reach us will ultimately be pretty low. “In cosmic space and time, there will be winners, who are able to see what’s going on and find solutions, and losers, who can’t pull themselves together and whose civilizations fail. issays Adam Frank. The question is in which category do we want to find ourselves? »
We are not looking in the right direction.
A few years ago, scientists suggested that we might be limited in our search for extraterrestrial life by our ideas of little green men or figures. HumanoidsHumanoids big head
As of late 2024, researchers have gone a little further to explain the Fermi Paradox. He proposed the idea of the wandering of foreign civilizations. Understand, civilizations that thrive without relying on a planet’s soil. A slightly crazy assumption? Not so much when we think about ourselves. AstronautAstronaut who live on the International Space Station (ISSISS).
The researchers thus describe a colony of organisms that can float freely in space, in a thin, rigid and transparent shell that will hold water to the right. pressurepressure and at the right temperature, allowing it to maintain a Green houseGreen house. So maybe we weren’t looking for life in the right place. And detecting it may be more difficult than scientists expected.
And what about UFOs in all this?
For those who view UFOs as spacecraft piloted by extraterrestrials, the Fermi paradox is resolved. Not only do extraterrestrials exist, they have already contacted us. Or with some of us, anyway. Then the question arises that what is their intention towards us?
