If the universe is infinite, at least big enough for observable universe, then mathematically, there should be lots of alien life buzzing around – like in star trek/star wars, yet we did not find any so far. Are they truly out there hiding in the cosmos?, or are we just the only planet buzzing with life?, or are they out there so far that they couldn’t reach/wouldn’t care about us?
For thousands of years, mankind had predicted that there existed extra-terrestrial creatures, whether its the mythical creatures depicted on moons as artistic work on ancient scrolls, or whether its the dark scary humanoids like the SCP’s in the foundation series, in short, anything that seems out of world or weird, is alien.
But with improvements in technology post renaissance era, and standardized scientific research, the whole concept of “alien life” changed. Once telescopes became more advanced and clearer, and planetary mappings were being drawn out, there were no visible evidence of any alien life on these planets/moons. however other possible theories, such as “hiding from us”/ “other side of planet” etc., would very well still be prevalent up until the 1960’s when humanity realized that space is not “full of life” as the pressure and temperatures outside is just too barren, and this fact of barren land further gets reinforced in the late 1960’s when humanity first landed on moon. no signs of life so far.
But this doesn’t mean that alien life doesn’t exist, infact, we have learnt more about the conditions where alien life could possibly exist, mainly: liquid water rich planet with land and a viable atmosphere. Although rare, it is possible. Possible enough to have at least a million life rich planets buzzing around in the milky way galaxy alone… or is it?
If there exist a million life rich planets, then why is there radio silence out there ? it should have been buzzing with signals – loud and clear, but here is where the alien life paradox begins, also known as the “fermi paradox“: Basically, for complex intelligent life to evolve just like us, it should pass through “Great filters”, i.e. like beating a video game level you need to clear and pass a “boss fight”, where if you win you progress, if you loose, you loose. One such example is chlorophyll, the ability to utilize solar energy to ‘live’ and process complex reactions.
This could be one of the reasons why we haven’t met/observed alien life, it could be so microbial that the only way to know is to visit/observe with high precision. Another reason is that these civilizations exist but are currently in pre-technology age, such as discovery of fire/electricity. And lastly, could be so far away that the speed with which universe expands, is faster than light’s speed, hence never knowing about it. Or use unknown technology we didn’t know existed, like showing someone in the 80’s the new iphone, or went “Kaboom” with nuclear bombs, or in a sinister way, ‘they’ are spying on us already and “we are” the ones being observed.
Nevertheless, not all hopes are lost as recently there seems to be some evidence of life on Venus!, yes Venus, the planet right next-door to earth! (this by the way very well resonates with this “I came looking for copper… and found gold!” meme), which could signify that there is hope and we just need to invent and innovate new technologies to detect these ‘aliens’, it just needs Time.
I really hope aliens do truly exist. It would be so cool, and exciting to one day discover they are truly out there. It does seem crazy that we haven’t run into any other life forms with there being infinity space, but part of that is because the galaxies are so far spread out. It takes 100,000 light-years to get across our galaxy alone and there are 100 billion galaxies. I would be amazed if there is life as close to us as venus, but I would love to see it someday if we can get a rover on the ground there. I can’t wait for the future of space travel! This was a great blog!
Statistically, aliens have to exist. The universe is just too wide and I refuse to believe we’re the only intelligent species walking around. Interesting that you bring up the point that these alien colonies are microbial so we can’t even see them. I read that and it put this image into my head: this microbial species is intelligent like humans. They’re like the Whos in Whoville – they live, breathe, invent like us, we just can’t see them. Imagine if this civilization was prevalent on mars or some other reachable planet. When humans eventually step foot on that planet for scientific discovery or what have you, we’ll look like Godzilla to them just stomping all over their world. We could say goodbye to friendly relations if that’s the case!
It’s such a exestentially terrifying thought to consider that we might be alone in an endless expanse of space. The sheer magnitute of our observed universe is incomprehensible to me as is, I can’t even begin to fathom it’s continuation infinitaly in all directions. I doubt we’ll unravel any major questions of the Universe in my lifetime or uncover intellegent life, but I am hesitantly excited to see humans begin the prosess of stretching out across the stars and taking a role in the Galactic community.