A universe buzzing with life? What is the probability of us being alone in the universe?
- Mr.Spience
- Apr 10, 2024
- 4 min read
We regularly hear about UFO sightings, human and animal abductions by extraterrestrials, ancient encounters with aliens, captures of alien entities, spacecraft crashes, crop circles, and other testimonies that prompt us to look up at the stars and contemplate what is true and what is not. Surely, with so many reports, some of these (maybe even just one) must be true, one might say. If this is happening, then we will have answered a terrifying question: "are we alone in the universe?" In this report, we will not deal with the occasional testimonies and indications of life in the universe, but with the possibility that it exists.
Let's start with an overview of the shape of the universe as we know it today. The known universe has 3 spatial dimensions (height, length, width) and 1 temporal dimension. Everywhere, these dimensions coexist and shape the infamous spacetime. There may be other dimensions imperceptible to us (as mentioned in a previous article), but this does not concern us as we cannot examine it with existing technology.
Within the universe of four dimensions, there is an estimated number of galaxies around 10 to the 23rd power galaxies. That is, we are talking about an inconceivable number: 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 galaxies! Initially, only about 3,000 galaxies were visible to Hubble. However, with calculations, we knew that there were over 125 million. Now, with new lenses, filters, and simulation techniques from supercomputers, we know that there are around 500 billion galaxies around us, with Avogadro's number (which governs cosmic harmony) finally being a highly true number that represents how many galaxies there are.
Each galaxy contains from 10 million stars (dwarfs) to 1 trillion stars (giants). These stars come in various sizes, smaller, larger, or equal to our own star, the Sun. Each star has a planetary system around it with various numbers of planets. Our solar system belongs to our galaxy and is one of the 100 to 400 billion solar systems it contains. In size, it is considered rather typical to the small galactic size.
If we consider that medium-sized galaxies have 500 billion stars, we are talking about approximately 50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars, as a rough estimate, in the universe. If each star has around 5 planets around it (not 9 like our system) and we do not calculate their satellites (which could also host life - why not, after all - a related article will follow), we are talking about 250,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets in the known universe. And, of course, we are referring to the universe of matter alone, without even dealing with antimatter and dark matter.
So various religions and scientists at times want to convince us that life exists only on Earth and nowhere else. This would be in itself something impossible, egotistical, and completely illogical, as such a probability would be on the order of 4 x 10^(-27) or 0.000000000000000000000000004, which is almost negligible. So why do they believe that Earth is so special and so fortunate to host life, where, comparatively, the probability of winning the lottery while being struck by lightning and before you recover, a meteorite falls on you, and then you are teleported, seems like something very simple and ordinary? I don't have an answer to this and I am genuinely puzzled.
This issue was also addressed by an astrophysicist, Dr. Frank Drake, who was a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In 1960, he formulated an equation that calculates the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy and their technological state. Through this equation, it is estimated that in our galaxy alone there are around 2,400,000 civilizations with which we could communicate, and most of them are at a much more advanced stage than our civilization, without even considering planets with life in the stage of microorganisms or planets with non-intelligent life or technologically inferior civilizations. We therefore have a universe that contains, on average and with quick calculations, 24 x 10^28 civilizations like ours and more advanced ones (240,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000).
The perception that Earth is so unique and lucky to host life may seem paradoxical or unlikely, but from a scientific perspective, the likelihood of life existing elsewhere in the universe is indeed very high, given the vast number of galaxies and star systems that exist.
Drake's equation is an attempt to estimate the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which we could communicate. This estimate is not limited to civilizations we can currently detect, but also includes those that may be at a much more advanced stage of technological evolution. The realization of the existence of so many potential civilizations in the universe demonstrates that Earth, although unique to us, is not so unique from a cosmic perspective.
It is paradoxical, then, to feel alone in the universe. Whether we have come into contact with these civilizations or not, whether we have come or are coming or will come into contact with them, is a completely different matter, and perhaps it doesn’t need to concern us, at least for now.
But the main point is that they exist out there…
PS: Sorry if I missed any zeros in typing, there were too many
Relatively links:
Comments