In 1950, Enrico Fermi asked an innocuous but deeply disturbing question: In a galaxy filled with planets and star systems, why don’t we see any other signs of life? This question—now known as the Fermi Paradox—fascinated astronomers, philosophers, and everyone involved for decades. Now, a team of researchers has proposed a new reason why we might not see intelligent life in the universe.
Their solution, published in the Astrophysical Journal, is simple: Alien life might not need to do all of these things. Researchers have explored whether next-generation space telescopes could spot solar panels on nearby exoplanets. The team concluded that if such intelligent life existed and harvested energy from the sun, it might not need the energy we needed to discover it.
Ravi Kopalapu, a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center said: “This means that civilizations may not feel the need to expand throughout the galaxy because even if they choose a very high standard of living, they may Reaching sustainable levels of population and energy use “They may expand within their own star system, or even within nearby star systems, but intergalactic civilizations may not exist. “
In the paper, the researchers explored whether silicon-based solar panels could be detected on Earth-like exoplanets. They chose silicon-based panels because the element is more abundant than other elements used in solar energy and is relatively cheap (at least on Earth) to mine and use in manufacturing.
The team imagined they were observing exoplanets in the Milky Way through the Habitable World Observatory, a key project of NASA’s Large Observatory Program. The first phase of development of the next-generation exoplanet focusing telescope is planned for 2029.
The team modeled an Earth-like planet with varying degrees of silicon solar panel coverage and tested whether the Habitable Worlds Observatory could detect signs of the technology as far as 30 light-years away. The team found that if 23% of the exoplanet was covered in solar panels, it would take at least hundreds of hours to detect technological signatures.
The research team points out that just 9% of the earth’s land cover is enough to maintain a high standard of living for 30 billion people. Clearly, having nearly a quarter of the Earth covered with solar panels is an extreme situation and is superfluous to the Earth’s energy needs.
“Given technological advances, large stellar energy harvesting structures may be particularly outdated,” study co-author Vincent Coffman, a researcher at NASA Goddard and American University, said in the same press release. “Certainly, one Societies that can place huge structures in space will be able to use nuclear fusion or other space-saving methods of generating electricity.”
The study hypothesized that alien civilizations would harness the solar energy of their host stars. Of course, aliens could use any number of energy sources, including those beyond our imagination.
But outside of specific power sources, we may not see signs of intelligent life in the universe because space is so large and we only have the tools to observe-real Look at it – decades, or a century all at once. Our galaxy has been around for billions of years, and our universe has been around for billions of years. As the SETI Institute points out, “The Fermi Paradox is a very large inference drawn from very local observations. You might as well look out the window and conclude that bears, as a species, cannot exist because You didn’t see any bears.
Recent research has made many assumptions about alien technology and its visibility, but it’s important to model these scenarios; once the Habitable Worlds Observatory and other next-generation telescopes become operational, these projects will have several places to start their search.
