Self-imposed intellectual stimulation ft. make me tired from my raging insomnia; go. Personally don’t like the phonetic aesthetic of the term, but all ideas of scientific origin must be labelled after their creator. The Fermi Paradox; a concept coined by Italian physicist, Enrico Fermi, explores the contradiction between the high probability of extraterrestrial life and the lack of evidence of their visitation or presence on earth and our solar system.
Our earth and solar system is relatively young in a planetary sense when compared to the rest of the universe, so it’s likely that if there is life- this life would have been around way longer than us, and hence despite exisiting billions of light years away, should be equipped with the wisdom and intellect that advanced rocket machinery and intergalactic travel requires.
Currently, our earth is in the initial astrophysical steps of investigating this feat due to resource decline as well as the inevitable cataclysmic explosion of the sun, and us if we don’t colonise another solar system. The Royal Astronomical Society have reported stars similar to the sun that are over a billion years older than earth that exist within the Milky Way. Current postulations predict that interstellar travel will indeed be possible for humans in the future; not in our life time or in the next century but the law of physics does not cancel out its possibility. So if the aliens are older and more advanced colonisers than us.. where are they?
Here I am. Fermi paradox solved lol.
Joking; welcome to the matrix.
Anyway, personal opinions aside, I shall return to this scientific tale of woe. So where are the aliens???????
Currently, if aliens do exist, these are the reasons why they have not made contact:
- They have very short life spans; do not have the time to transverse galaxies (even if they can travel faster than the speed of light)
- They exist, we just have no evidence
- They simply do not want to make contact.
- Aliens are extremely rare
- Our understanding of the universe is completely off
Okay so firstly, let’s assume aliens do exist, they just don’t care to make contact or are unable to due to short life expectancy or other biological hindrances. The probability of extraterrestrial life is astounding on a numerical scale given the estimated 200-400 billion stars in the Milky Way. Remember our sun is a star and is a crucial platform in the origin and sustenance of life. How can there be so many avenues for life yet no evidence? And so here, I’ll introduce the mediocrity complex. It is exactly what it sounds; perhaps earth is mediocre. Indeed, Earth may be a ‘typical’ planet; there is nothing special about us, and from the viewpoint of higher intelligence, we are simply not worth the time and resources required for interstellar travel. This is a bit of a slap in the face for the human race; perhaps we think too much about our meaning and place as a whole (let alone individually) within the universe.
However, intelligent life has a tendency to colonise and resources on home planets are finite; so I will now address the last and most devastating point; Aliens do no exist.
The Rare Earth Hypothesis states that life in itself is rare; that the existence of organisms on earth which are biochemically functional, multicellular, reproductive let alone loaded with human intelligence, is a freak accident of geological events, atmosphere and a little bit of atomic Star dust.
The rarity of biological complexity comes down to life requiring a range of highly specific and chance conditions. For example, earth was gifted with a central star (sun), perfect terrestrial planet size, a gas guardian planet in the form of Jupiter, a large satellite planet (Saturn), a tide-influencing moon – all of these function together to create the chemistry of the atmosphere, lithosphere, oceans as well as influence plate tectonics and magnetosphere. This coupled with rare meteoroid impacts (passing on atomic ingredients for life from stars) as well as large scale glaciation provide very optimistic conditions for the beginnings of eukaryotic (multicellular) life; which saw the implosion of plants, animals and fungi on earth. Human intelligence on the other hand resulted in a further rare incidence of events; which may have not occurred if the Dinosaurs did not meet their untimely meteor demise.
Furthermore, the galactic habitable zone must be addressed. Scientists have noted that habitable planets must fall within a certain distance from the ‘galactic habitable zone’. Hence, planets of life origin must not be too far away front the galactic point, as star metals decrease and these are essential for the formation of habitable planets. On the other hand, the planet can’t be too close to the galactic centre as it is filled with largely ‘dead zones’, areas either full of exploding stars (supernovae) or large life-extinguishing meteoroids. This places the perfect planet wedged in a perfect area not too far, but not too close to the galactic centre. Another perfect coincidence … could other parts of the universe be so opportune as Earth?
Finally – perhaps everything is just WRONG. We created mathematics after all. It works on earth but what if we are completely wrong about, for example, the physical nature of black holes, worm holes and planetary gravity. What if dark matter (which makes up 97% of universe) has a huge implication on the equations we use to understand life in space (as well as on earth)?
These are big questions. Too big for my brain. I’m tired of reading now, TY!
But one thing that reading up on all this again and creating a little non-scientist reader friendly piece reminded me…is that, life is really special. I can’t believe I’m alive in such an infinite mass of space surrounded by so many exploding stars and void planets, yet here I am. I’d love to know if aliens are real (praying for an extraterrestrial apocalypse on my 97th birthday), however knowing how special life is on a grand scheme is somewhat comforting and amazing enough. If the aliens think we are mediocre, then I guess they don’t understand us.. or dare to.
Humanity isn’t always pretty, but we can find beauty in simply existing. This can be applied to us individually as well. Just be glad you’re here- make the most of it.
Love number one alien,
Gabs xoxox
P.s wrote this to throw the haters off, going to visit my fam on planet KUwaIII
gabrielleawood.com 