Earth is already 4.54 billion years old and yet there is no concrete evidence yet that points out extraterrestrial life has visited the planet. But why humanity has never been visited by them?
To solve this question, two astrobiologists have come up with a possible and disturbing explanation. They said that advanced civilizations in outer space could also be doomed by the same processes that humanity is experiencing that stifle their growth and prevents them from coming or contacting humans. Their argument seeks to solve the Fermi Paradox
What is the Fermi Paradox?
In 1950, famous physicist Enrico Fermi shared lunchtime with fellow scientists about his thoughts about extraterrestrial life. According to SETI Institute, Fermi asked if intelligent civilizations did exist in outer space, then why have they not visited Earth yet. His comments came after a discussion among scientists that many sophisticated societies could be living in the galaxy.
But somewhere in that sentence, his supple brain realized that if there are a lot of them, then some might have spread out. He pointed out that any civilization with a modest amount of rocket technology and an immodest imperial incentive would have already colonized the galaxy.
This thought process became known as the Fermi Paradox. The scientist also said that every star system could be brought under the wing of an empire within a few tens of millions of years, which may seem like a long time but is quite short compared to the age of the galaxy.
But with all the scientific advancements today, there is no clear indication yet that extraterrestrial life could exist. Although, the signals detected from observatories and telescopes may or may not catch a message from them. Nonetheless, Fermi was left with the obvious question: "where is everybody?"
Advanced Civilization Keep on Collapsing Before They Could Reach Earth
Dr. Michael Wong of the Carnegie Institution for Science and Dr. Stuart Bartlett from the California Institute of Technology wrote in their study, titled "Asymptotic Burnout and Homeostatic Awakening: A Possible Solution to Thefermi Paradox?" published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, that extraterrestrials may be prevented from advancing because of similar reasons that stifle human civilizatiion's development.
According to Live Science, this could mean that space-faring civilizations grow and then eventually reach a crisis point that makes them collapse, which compels them to rebuild. Perhaps, like humans, they have been stagnant in that process that they have not yet communicated or come to Earth, or explored beyond their boundaries.
Ancient human civilizations have repeatedly undergone this process, like the Roman Empire and Ancient Egyptians, and the two scientists argue that extraterrestrial civilizations might also be no exception to this.
The theory is called superlinear scaling, which might explain why humans have yet to come across extraterrestrials despite a universe off trillions of planets that are potentially full of life.
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