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Earthlings, brace yourselves: the galaxy may be emptier than your last Tinder date.
According to a new study, any alien civilizations out there? Probably short-lived — and doomed to fail spectacularly.
For decades, humans have been scanning the cosmos for signals of intelligent life.
And yet — crickets.
This cosmic ghost town phenomenon, famously dubbed the Fermi Paradox, has puzzled astronomers since physicist Enrico Fermi first asked the big question in 1950: “Where is everybody?”
Now, a team of physicists from Sharif University of Technology may have an answer.
Sohrab Rahvar and Shahin Rouhani’s recent paper, “Constraining the Lifespan of Intelligent Technological Civilization in the Galaxy,” lays it out bluntly: Advanced civilizations last roughly 5,000 years.
“In this work, we explore constraints on the emergence and longevity of technologically intelligent civilizations in our Galaxy, considering the Fermi paradox,” the authors write.
“We argue that under optimistic assumptions about the probability of life and intelligence emerging on Earth-like planets, the absence of contact with extraterrestrial civilizations imposes limits on their lifespan.”
“Our analysis suggests that if intelligent life is common, technological civilizations must be relatively short-lived, with lifetimes constrained to ≲5×10³ years under our most optimistic scenario.”
In plain English? The odds are stacked against any alien species surviving long enough to send us a friendly “hello” across the void.
And the reasons are all too familiar: massive asteroids, supervolcanoes, changing climate, nuclear war, pandemics, and rogue artificial intelligence.
The study’s grim math also explains why our radio telescopes haven’t picked up any alien chatter.
Translation: if aliens were long-lived, we’d have heard from them already.
Earth, by comparison, is a baby civilization. But while humans are busy streaming cat videos and arguing over pineapple on pizza, the clock is definitely ticking.
And if we want to avoid becoming another cosmic cautionary tale, we might want to keep an eye on that asteroid heading our way — and maybe slow down on the destructive behavior, while we’re at it.
After all, 5,000 years doesn’t sound like much — but in the universe’s ledger, it’s enough to make your extinction look impressively brief.
As previously reported by The Post, a separate new study in “The Astrophysical Journal” suggests that “space weather” could be messing with alien broadcasts before they even reach us.
Researchers at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute say most searches focus on ultra-sharp, narrow frequency signals—but the cosmos might be playing tricks on them.
To figure out what we might be missing, the team modeled how “space weather” near the source can stretch transmissions. Their findings were eye-opening.
Stars like M-dwarfs — which make up roughly 75% of the Milky Way — may be especially prone to broadening narrowband signals due to flares and stellar wind fluctuations.
In other words, alien transmissions could be out there, but we’re just not tuned to the right frequency.
Ultimately, SETI searches may need an upgrade.
Instead of looking only for razor-thin signals, scientists suggest widening the net to catch transmissions slightly blurred by their own star’s cosmic chaos.
Read the full article here
