Astronomers searching for radio signals that could be signs of extraterrestrial life have just gained access to South Africa’s MeerKAT telescope.
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The Fermi Paradox ask us how in a Universe so vast and ancient we seem to be the only intelligent civilization around, with no older interstellar alien empires visible in the galaxy. But could extinction play a role in that, or might extinction events instead drive evolution forward?
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There are likely many exciting alien worlds for extraterrestrials to visit.
Now that more and more scientists are actively searching for signs of extraterrestrial life, whether in our solar system or in the far reaches of space, more attention has been brought to the Fermi paradox.
A new study in preprint server arXiv suggests that we might not have encountered intelligent extraterrestrials because they may not find humanity very interesting.
According to a recent paper by a math professor at the University of Arkansas, the existence of life on Earth provides proof that abiogenesis is relatively easy on planets similar to Earth, refuting the “Carter argument” conclusion.
Does the presence of life on Earth provide any insight into the likelihood that abiogenesis—the process by which life first emerges from inorganic substances—occurs elsewhere? That is a question that has baffled scientists for a while, as well as everyone else inclined to think about it.
What dead whales can teach us about finding aliens.
Posted on Big Think, direct link at.
Posted on BigThink.
Continue reading “How to Make Alien Life Come Out of Hiding” »
Are alien civilizations likely to be younger or older than us in age? A basic question that seems insurmountable until we start detecting them. But even before that, we can use some logical deduction using lifetime distribution statistics to determine the most plausible answer to this question. Join us today for an explanation of our new research paper on this topic.
You can now support our research program and the Cool Worlds Lab at Columbia University: https://www.coolworldslab.com/support.
Continue reading “Why We May Be Surrounded by Older Alien Civilizations” »
If we re-ran Earth’s clock, would life arise again? Would another civilization eventually evolve? Astrobiology is faced with trying to contextualize our place in the Universe using just a single data point. But even a single data point contains information. The key to unlocking it is a careful understanding of the selection biases at play and intricacies of Bayesian statistics. Today, we’re thrilled to present to you our explainer video of a new research paper led by Prof David Kipping that provides a direct quantification of the odds of life and intelligence on Earth-like worlds, based on our own chronology. Presented & Written by Prof. David Kipping.
This video is based on research conducted at the Cool Worlds Lab at Columbia University, New York. You can now support our research program directly here: https://www.coolworldslab.com/support.
Previous episodes to catch up on:
► “Watching the End of the World”: https://youtu.be/p9e8qNNe3L0
► “Why We Could Be Alone”: https://youtu.be/PqEmYU8Y_rI
The Rare Earth Hypothesis suggests that our planet may the product of an incredibly improbable sequence of events, and thus perhaps intelligent life is extremely rare in the cosmos. Here we tackle this highly influential idea and the arguments behind it. But, digging deeper, we’ll uncover some problems with the Rare Earth idea — some of which strike to the very core of our scientific quest.
Written & presented by Prof David Kipping.
Continue reading “The Problem With ‘The Rare Earth Hypothesis’” »
“I wouldn’t want to be on the team figuring out how to build a Jupiter-sized spacecraft, but the odds aren’t zero.”
A team of scientists believes we may be able to detect alien spacecraft flying through distant solar systems using the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the US.
Though the scientists from Applied Physics, a research institute in New York, concede that gravitational wave (GW) detection is “in its infancy”, they also say it is “a sophisticated science” that could be used to “detect extra-terrestrial mega-technology,” in a paper available in pre-print server arXiv.
Finding alien planets orbiting other stars is easy. Astronomers have found over 6,000 of them in just the last decade, but very few are considered even possibly habitable. Scientists have dozens of telescopes on the ground and in space that can find them and now even study their atmospheres for signs of life. Most are around small, dim red dwarf stars simply because current technology makes it difficult to study objects around bright Sun-like stars.
The next great objective in planetary science? Send a spacecraft to explore the surface of one of them, of course.
If we want to find Earth 2.0 we’re going to have to play the long game and visit star systems most like our own, says a white paper proposing a multi-century mission.
