In the 20th century, the search for extraterrestrial life officially began. As scientists were able to observe the universe farther away, the first humans went into space, and it seemed inevitable that eventually we would discover extraterrestrial life. So far, these hopes have been frustrated by a lack of evidence, but that doesn't mean there is no extraterrestrial life to be found. If we do achieve this historic moment, how will it be presented?
In 1961, astronomer Frank Drake proposed the Drake Equation, an attempt to estimate the number of alien civilizations in the Milky Way that can communicate with us. It includes factors such as the number of stars and planets, as well as the possibility of the development of intelligent life. The original solution of Drake's equation is 10. There are also some more optimistic solutions, estimated to be hundreds, or even thousands. Drake's equation became the basis for a search for various alien intelligent beings (SETI).
It is also closely related to the Fermi Paradox, named after physicist Enrico Fermi, which was formally established in 1975. The Fermi Paradox raises the question: If the estimates are so high, where are all the aliens? Possible explanations include: the estimate is wrong; Intelligent life tends to self-destruct; They were too far away.
Then again, perhaps the advanced civilized worlds are not interested in coming into contact with us, and they may face the same obstacles as we do in the search for extraterrestrial intelligent life. The slow pace of interstellar communication, and the obstacles to interstellar travel, may be insurmountable, at least for all practical applications. A radio wave travels at the speed of light, but given the extreme distances involved in a radio wave, it can take decades, centuries, or even longer to actually receive a message. At that point, it is no longer precise.
Note that this has not stopped us from trying, at least, that humans have sent messages about us humans to other planets, including the Arecibo message broadcast in 1974. Another way is to use telescopes to look for signs of aliens on exoplanets. At the moment, our telescopes are not advanced enough to see a great deal of detail on distant planets.
In 2018, researchers at Columbia University estimated in a study that astronomers would soon be able to detect mountains on exoplanets by means of theodolite measurements. However, if you want to find distant civilizations in this way, the structures on these planets must be very large, and the skyscrapers are far behind. Even so, it is not easy to distinguish these megastructures from ordinary terrain. If you're looking for a liquid planet, don't even think about it. If we had stumbled upon the Dyson sphere, a hypothetical giant structure that envelops stars to draw energy, it would be a blessing in disguise.
Of course, the study of relational exoplanets is a relatively new field. It was not until 1992 that exoplanets were first confirmed. Only with advances in technology can we study more details about extrasolar planets. The biggest difficulty, however, is that when we encounter extraterrestrial life, we may not be able to recognize them. Maybe they're so bizarre that life forms are so far removed from what we see on Earth that we don't realize what they are at first. Hopefully, we will eventually recognize our mistakes, open up new avenues of science, and increase our understanding of the universe.
The closer these new life forms are to us, the better. Discovering life on distant exoplanets may be exciting, but actually studying them is impossible. But if life is found on Mars, we can directly examine these Martian neighbors. We can bring them back to Earth or build laboratories and research bases on the Red Planet. If we do discover intelligent life, whether through known SETI projects or some new breakthrough technology, communication may be the first step. Even in most satirical novels about alien invasions, there are always attempts to communicate.
What happens next may determine our future in this slightly crowded galaxy, even though it doesn't seem like that. At its best, communication enables us to exchange peaceful information about ourselves and our understanding of the universe. Exchanging information may take generations, but in the long run we will be able to learn from new pen friends who are more technologically advanced. But it is also possible that our friendliness will be called into question, and it is even more likely that these interstellar neighbors know our customs and history well.
In any case, we probably want to go along or against the trajectory. Once this is the case, there may be a direct conflict. Alien civilizations may also have completely different thinking patterns and values from ours, which are prone to conflict and confrontation. After that, we will have our own tendency to provoke aggression. We might be a little bit planning to colonize their planet, or maybe we'd be a little panicked if they came to our planet, whatever their intentions. In any case, it is hard to imagine that war cannot be negotiated.
The United States has sanctioned a space force to protect the interests of the American people, and the agreement prohibits the militarization of space, which would change if there is a new space race. But even if we had weapons in space at the time, it might not have helped. In the near future, if there is a race that can travel many light-years of space to wage war against us here, we will soon be wiped out. Our most powerful are nuclear weapons, and it's hard to imagine that aliens who can master warp speed do not have nuclear weapons. But what if the dust settles? Or if we could avoid anything from changing anything? Maybe we should listen to the optimists that aliens would come to Earth peacefully.
Calling up space forces is very expensive, and we can salute first, so that we can ally with the alien civilizations we encounter. There are also unexpected gains in establishing this relationship properly, they can teach us interstellar travel and science, and we may even go on a tour of their planet as guests. The possibility of more alien intelligent civilizations is there, and there may be an organization of exploration and understanding of the universe built throughout the galaxy. Earth could join a large intelligent alien civilization, traveling through the stars, cooperating with different planets without confrontation.
Of course, even if we can become advanced enough to join them, we may still need to break through certain barriers ourselves to be accepted by them, and we will not rely on the intervention of other civilizations. The extraterrestrial civilizations waiting for us to discover are also an incentive to invest more financial and resources in scientific development and peace-building. These possibilities depend on the wisdom of the alien civilizations we discover. If we had discovered an alien civilization but proved to be not intelligent, it would have been a different story. There are 8.7 million species on Earth, and only humans have the intelligence to build huge and complex structures to venture out into space.
We can find that there are many wild animals on many planets, but they are completely incomparable in terms of intelligence, but this discovery will not reduce the stimulation of astrobiology, and it will be an honor to study strange species on other planets. Discoveries like this are like the first fossils found on Earth in the 19th century, before which we didn't know that there were large reptiles living on Earth, and in order to study what they looked like and what happened to them, a whole new field of research was born.
A strange planet may have their own dinosaur species, and we should study them directly instead of studying fossils, which will transform our understanding of biological confusion in an exciting way, and maybe one day we look back and think, how strange it is not to know that there are aliens outside of our planet, just as it seems strange that there was a time when we didn't know what dinosaurs were. If these aliens were intelligent, we would have to completely change our mindset and try not to perish or be destroyed, but it could be the beginning of a friendship or something that might happen if we proved that aliens existed.
Related knowledge
1) A planet is neither a star nor a remnant of a star, but a large celestial body. There are now some scientific definitions of a planet, and the International Astronomical Union has adopted a dynamic definition of a planet, that is, a planet is a non-star body that can rely on its own gravity to orbit a star and can clear other competing objects in its own operating space;
2) The International Astronomical Union also describes a fully independent formal definition of the eight planets in the solar system; most planetologists use the geological definition of a planet, that is, a planet is likely to be a satellite orbited by a substar; in addition, the eight planets of the solar system recognized by the International Astronomical Union include dwarf planets, such as Eris, Pluto, and massive moons, which are sometimes referred to in geological definitions as large-scale interstellar objects or simply planar stars.
The word planet is ancient, and it is closely associated with history, astrology, mythology, and religion. In addition to the Moon, the five planets can be seen with the naked eye at night. In early cultures, planets were seen as messengers of gods or as self-divination, and as science progressed, human understanding of planets changed, and telescopes were invented to allow other stars of different sizes, shapes, and orbits to be discovered. In 2006, the National Astronomical Union adopted a resolution limiting the number of planets in the solar system, although this resolution is not endorsed by all astronomers, especially planetologists; it is controversial because the new resolution contains a large number of geologically active interstellar objects that exist or operate.
by:sunny，熵芯人，Ernest Physik (Ian)，&