MIRLI BOOKS
  • Home
  • Books
    • Henry's Trials >
      • Extract from Henry's Trials
    • Smethurst's Luck >
      • Extract from Smethurst's Luck
    • Murder in the Red Barn >
      • Extract from Murder in the Red Barn
    • Reverend Duke and the Amesbury Oliver
  • Talks
    • Talk on Henry's Trials
    • Talk on Smethurst's Luck
    • Talk on Isambard Kingdom Brunel
    • Talk on the Murder in the Red Barn
    • BBC
  • Publications
    • The Amesbury Union Workhouse
    • The Separate System
  • Peter Maggs
  • Shop
  • Blog
  • Family History
    • Mirli
    • BM Creeper >
      • The Significance of Stonehenge
      • Educating Ealing I: How Lady Byron Did It
      • Educating Ealing II: Church of England Primary in the 1920s
      • All Because of Crystal Palace
      • Innocent in Ealing - Extract
      • Miss McDonald

Is there anybody out there?

8/12/2014

1 Comment

 
Enrico Fermi, one of the fathers of atomic power, wrote: “If the estimates of the large numbers of other civilizations in the Galaxy or Universe are correct, given that some of them must have evolved millions of years before us, why have we never been visited or even contacted?”

It’s good question, and precision cosmology may provide the answer. The current estimate of the number of galaxies in the ‘known’ universe is at least 100,000,000,000. These contain, between them, approximately, 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars…

When considering the possibility of extraterrestrial life, the debate usually starts with uncertainty as the extent of other planets in the Universe. But now that around 2,000 exoplanets have been discovered, it seems likely that most stars will have some; if our solar system is typical, and each star has three or four rocky planets orbiting it, the ‘observable universe’ could contain around 400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets…

If we accept that life spontaneously evolved from complex organic molecules on Earth 3,600,000,000 years ago, it seems remotely unlikely that over a period of 13,000,000,000 years (since the Big Bang), and with so many planets to choose from, life has not appeared elsewhere…

But if, as Fermi suggested, intelligent life has existed even millions of years before us, why, with so many stars to choose from should anyone bother coming to look for us? Very simple: no-one knows we’re here… Of all manifestations of ‘intelligent’ life on Earth, only radio signals can be detected from the stars. It is only since the 1930s when TV broadcasting began using UHF frequencies, that signals have penetrated the ionosphere and leaked into space. In the 80 years or so since then, radio signals have barely penetrated 80 light years into the Galaxy which is 100,000 light years across… No more than a few hundred stars out of the 100,000,000,000 in the Galaxy could have detected our transmissions and even that would assume that they had massive radio telescopes pointed in our direction.

The truth is, we’re completely isolated. The Galaxy is vast but the Universe is immense. There are probably millions of civilizations out there, but no-one knows we’re here…

1 Comment
Paul Robertson
15/12/2014 04:31:36 am

Puts me in mind of Eric Idle's 'Galaxy Song'. One has to admit though, that whether or not other life-paradigms exist elsewhere in the universe, we are beyond each others' awareness-horizons. Fermi may be right about how long ago a civilisation could have evolved, and thus what heights of intelligence it might have scaled. Rather than taking the fact that they haven't contacted us proof that they don't exist, one could interpret it as proof that they are intelligent.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Welcome to the Mirli Books blog written by Peter Maggs

    Archives

    February 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Website and Contents © Peter Maggs 2023
  • Home
  • Books
    • Henry's Trials >
      • Extract from Henry's Trials
    • Smethurst's Luck >
      • Extract from Smethurst's Luck
    • Murder in the Red Barn >
      • Extract from Murder in the Red Barn
    • Reverend Duke and the Amesbury Oliver
  • Talks
    • Talk on Henry's Trials
    • Talk on Smethurst's Luck
    • Talk on Isambard Kingdom Brunel
    • Talk on the Murder in the Red Barn
    • BBC
  • Publications
    • The Amesbury Union Workhouse
    • The Separate System
  • Peter Maggs
  • Shop
  • Blog
  • Family History
    • Mirli
    • BM Creeper >
      • The Significance of Stonehenge
      • Educating Ealing I: How Lady Byron Did It
      • Educating Ealing II: Church of England Primary in the 1920s
      • All Because of Crystal Palace
      • Innocent in Ealing - Extract
      • Miss McDonald