this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023
158 points (97.6% liked)
Asklemmy
43736 readers
1635 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
There should be life ahead of us and life behind us.
We can see about 10,000 other solar systems with our naked eyes.
We can see 217,000 with a pair of binoculars
5.3 million with a 3-in telescope
380 million with a 15-in telescope
I can't find the number for a 64 node earthwide radio telescope but If we were going to find life it would probably be with that.
You're right, but that's the 'paradox'. Given our most pessimistic estimates for the chances of life we should have seen at least something that was a huge give away by now. Maybe better telescopes and observation methods will find them, we can get a spectrum from exoplanets. That's incredible; but so far all we see with our telescopes is more lifeless space. That doesn't mean they're not out there, it means our estimates are wrong. It probably means that we just don't understand what factors are required to create life very well and advanced life is incredibly rare.
And yet. We wouldn't see ourselves from Alpha Centari unless there was deliberate directed transmission.