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Aliens likely won’t contact us for at least another 1,500 years.

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Aliens likely won’t contact us for at least another 1,500 years.

We are unlikely to hear from aliens from across the universe for at least 1,500 years more, even though there may be other life forms in the cosmos, scientists say.
Astronomers from Cornell University deconstructed the Fermi Paradox and paired it with the Mediocrity Principle into a fresh equation.

According to the Fermi Paradox, billions of Earth-like planets exist in our galaxy, yet no aliens have contacted or visited us. Thus the paradox: the cosmos teems with possibility. The mediocrity principle - proposed by 16th-century mathematician Copernicus - states that the Earth's physical attributes are not unique, as natural processes are likely common throughout the cosmos, and therefore aliens would not discover us for a while.

Hunting for extraterrestrials means sending out signals like television broadcasts, for example. As Earth's electronic ambassador, TV and radio signals are sent into space as a byproduct of broadcasting. These signals have been travelling from Earth for 80 years at the speed of light. For aliens receiving these transmissions, they would likely be indecipherable, said Solomonides, as the extraterrestrials would need to decode light waves into sounds, then parse 3,000 human languages to grasp the message. Earth's broadcast signals have reached every star within about 80 light years from the Sun - about 8,531 stars and 3,555 Earth-like planets, as our Milky Way galaxy alone contains 200 billion stars, researchers said.

Combining the equations for the Fermi Paradox and the mediocrity principle, the researchers suggest that the Earth might hear from an alien civilization when about half of the Milky Way Galaxy has been signaled in about 1,500 years.

A more in-depth article.

The disturbing Fermi Paradox suggests we should have made contact with an extraterrestrial civilization by now, yet we haven’t. By applying a 500-year-old philosophical principle, a Cornell University researcher has shown that the Great Silence is not unexpected — we just need to give it more time.

Also a video if you don’t want to read!

Ayy lmao if old.
 

SpaceWolf

Banned
Who's to say they haven't already contacted mankind?

Why, there could be an extraterrestrial being who posts regularly on this very forum, and you might not even know it.
 
I can't wait till we go beyond the bounds and all the horrible Lovecraftian beasts and facehuggers pour out of derelict spaceships and strange horrible portals.

Truly, the best and worst of times.

What if we are the aliens.
 
Who's to say they haven't already contacted mankind?

Why, there could be an extraterrestrial being who posts regularly on this very forum, and you might not even know it.

An extraterrestrial being who has a vested interest in the latest in video game news on earth. Also dank memes.

BELIEVE
 

NumberTwo

Paper or plastic?
I wonder if an alien species will ever receive a tv broadcast of Independence Day or Star Wars and misunderstand that we're in some in the middle of some interstellar conflict. They'll probably just go....nope, not getting involved in that.
 

Bearjewpiter

Neo Member
1500 years later, humankind finally gets its first communication from an alien race:

"aay lmao"

NuwcRUy.jpg


I think that even if alien life did come through our solar system they wouldn't even look twice at us. If they have the capacity for interstellar travel, even in 1500 years we will look like ants compared to their level of technological progress. They'll probably soar right on past us to mine Venus and Mercury for fuel and leave again.
 

Drazgul

Member
I think that even if alien life did come through our solar system they wouldn't even look twice at us. If they have the capacity for interstellar travel, even in 1500 years we will look like ants compared to their level of technological progress. They'll probably soar right on past us to mine Venus and Mercury for fuel and leave again.

Ants, you say?

3206.jpg
 

efyu_lemonardo

May I have a cookie?
All these equations are really wonderfully thought out and logical, but they are filled with fantasy variable values.

No one knows.

Yeah but I must be misunderstanding the sentence because the Galaxy is 100,000 light years wide so 1500 years (or more accurately, 750, accounting for the two way trip) doesn't even begin to cover half of it.
 

Kurdel

Banned
I think that even if alien life did come through our solar system they wouldn't even look twice at us. If they have the capacity for interstellar travel, even in 1500 years we will look like ants compared to their level of technological progress. They'll probably soar right on past us to mine Venus and Mercury for fuel and leave again.

Thst reaction depends on how comon sentient life is in the cosmos, not on their technological progrss.
 
Forget the Fermi Paradox.

Forget the Mediocrity Principle.

The real explanation for lack of alien contact is the Prime Directive.
 
Aliens with advanced technology thousands of years smarter than us would need to decode light and parse 3000 languages to find "life" but us plebs are smart enough to just look for repeating patterns.

Yeah OK.
 
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