In how many years will humanity contact aliens?

According to the calculations of astronomers, in the universe there isa huge number of galaxies, stars and planets. Many of them could certainly form habitable conditions, so why haven't we met aliens yet? It was this question that the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi asked in the middle of the 20th century, and scientists have not yet found an answer to it. Recently, Chinese researchers Wenjie Song and He Gao conducted a thought experiment and found that human contact with an alien mind would occur in 400,000 years. If you consider that people started farming only 12,000 years ago, this is a huge amount of time. In addition, by this moment humanity may cease to exist, that is, we will not find aliens. But how did scientists get this figure and is there really no more optimistic forecast? Fortunately, he is.

Scientists use mathematical methods to find out after how many years contact with aliens can take place

Is there life in the Milky Way?

According to the authors of the scientific work, the resultswhich were published in the scientific journal Astrophysical Journal, to date, a huge amount of research has been carried out on the possibility of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations. Even for the best minds of mankind, this is an extremely difficult task, because we know how life arises only from our own experience, and only in general terms. In the field of Communication of Extraterrestrial Intelligent Civilizations (CETI), scientists are trying to calculate the number of possible civilizations outside the Earth using mathematical equations. But, since the variables in these problems are assumptions, these studies can be considered thought experiments.

Scientists are trying to calculate the probability of the existence of aliens using equations

The most famous formula for determining the numberextraterrestrial civilizations in the galaxy is called the Drake equation. It was formulated in 1960 by the American astronomer Frank Drake, but is criticized for the fact that, due to variable assumptions, the result is likely to be an erroneous number. The image below shows Drake's formula and an explanation of each variable.

Deciphering the Drake equation. If too lazy to translate, read this

In 2020, scientists used a similar formula andfound that 36 advanced civilizations can exist in the Milky Way galaxy. The authors of the scientific work received this number after taking into account the history of star formation, the distribution of metals and the presence of planets similar to Earth in known stars.

THERE ARE AT LEAST 5 REASONS WHY WE DID NOT MEET ALIENS. READ ABOUT THEM SOON.

When will the answer come from the aliens?

In a new study, researchers Wenjie Song andHe Gao tried to figure out how many years people can contact aliens. They used two variables in their calculations. The first parameter concerns how many Earth-like planets exist and how often intelligent life arises on them. The second parameter is at what stage of the existence of a star (analogous to the Sun) intelligent life can appear on a nearby planet. As a result of the work, scientists received two scenarios, pessimistic and optimistic.

In any case, we have to wait a long time for contact with aliens.

In the first case, the calculations showed that forthe emergence of life on a neighboring planet, the star must be very mature. If so, the probability of detecting a signal from aliens drops to a measly 0.001%. In this case, only 111 extraterrestrial civilizations can exist in the Milky Way. And people will wait for contact with them for about 400,000 years.

And maybe we will never find aliens

An optimistic forecast was made on the condition thatthat life on planets can arise even for 25% of the total lifespan of a star. This time, it turns out that about 42 thousand intelligent civilizations can exist in the Milky Way, that is, the chances of meeting them are noticeably increased. Most likely, they will be widely scattered throughout the galaxy, but even under such conditions, the waiting time for a response will be 2,000 years - whatever one may say, this is better than hundreds of thousands of years.

If you are interested in the news of science and technology, subscribe to our Telegram channel. There you will find announcements of the latest news from our site!

However, in both cases, humanity cando not wait for an answer from the inhabitants of other planets. Scientists have already sent a lot of signals into space and continue to plan to send messages, but the aliens may receive them and react too late - by this time we may completely die out due to a global catastrophe. In addition, it is possible that extraterrestrial intelligence will not be as friendly as we expect. Perhaps the aliens will notice us and simply destroy us with their lasers - I talked about this outcome of events in this material.