A new study provides a compelling reason why we haven’t been contacted by intelligent alien life. The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, suggests that for a planet to evolve intelligent, communicating life, it would need both oceans and continents, and the surface must be in geologic motion, or “plate tectonics”, for at least some 500 million years.
When other factors are considered, such as the fraction of hospitable planets that host any life at all and how long a signal-emitting civilization might last, the possibility of many active, communicating civilizations in space looks implausible. The researchers liken it to “winning the lottery”.
Estimates of the number of advanced communicating civilizations in our galaxy range widely, but are generally high. They all use an elegant, simple formula, called the Drake Equation, to guide the prediction. A recent proposal suggests there should be at least 36 civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy. However, the new research estimates are considerably lower, suggesting that it can be as low as only four out of 10,000 galaxies having one civilization.
The key takeaway is that the existence of intelligent, communicating life on other planets may be much rarer than previously thought. Despite this, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence continues, fueled by our curiosity and the vastness of the universe.
Read more: mashable.com
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