Our Milky Way Galaxy may be home to 2 billion planets that have the right conditions to support life. These planets have the correct temperature for liquid water. While no one knows what alien life would look like, if it is anything like life on earth, it would need water to survive. The possibility of liquid water depends on a planet’s distance from the nearest star. Too close and water evaporates; too far away and water freezes. Scientists have also looked at the effects of clouds on planet temperature. This has increased the estimate of habitable planets to 2 billion. This is only the number of habitable planets in the Milky Way Galaxy, which is just one of an estimated 100 to 200 billion galaxies in the universe.
The earth was formed 9 billion years after the Big Bang. Many of the planets in the Milky Way were formed millions and some even billions of years before the earth. If intelligent life had developed on any of these planets, they would have had a big head start on humanity. With that much time to develop the technology for space travel, we should have been visited by aliens many times.
So where is everyone? Conspiracy theorists believe that aliens have visited earth many times, and the governments of the world are involved in a huge cover-up. Some believe that we have also been visited many times in the ancient past. They point to the Egyptian pyramids or the enormous heads of Easter Island. They say that there was no way that ancient humans were capable of creating these structures without alien assistance.
According to Harvard professor Avi Loeb, we not only have been visited by aliens, we have concrete proof. In 2017, a cigar-shaped object came within 33 million km of the earth as it passed through our solar system. It was named Oumuamua, which means ‘messenger from the distant past reaching out to us’ in Hawaiian. Loeb says that its unusual shape and the fact that it sped up as it left our solar system sets it apart from anything else we’ve seen. He thinks it was a probe sent by an alien civilization. Astrophysicist Jackie Fairey says everyone should take that claim with a grain of salt. She is one of many scientists who say there are more plausible explanations for Oumuamua. That hasn’t stopped Professor Loeb from doubling down on his theory. He has written a new book on Oumuamua called Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth.
References:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/nov/04/planets-galaxy-life-kepler
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2021/01/04/a-harvard-astronomer-is-more-confident-than-ever-that-an-alien-probe-visited-us-in-2017/?sh=63e3f4b25722
Our galaxy may be home to 2 billion planets that can support life. These planets have the right temperature for water. No one knows what alien life would look like. If it is anything like life on earth, it would need water to survive. The possibility of water depends on a planet’s distance from the closest star. Too close, and water evaporates. Too far away, and water freezes. Scientists have also looked at how clouds can change a planet’s temperature. This has increased the estimate of life-supporting planets to 2 billion. This is only looking at our galaxy, which is just one of 100 to 200 billion galaxies in the universe.
The earth is 9 billion years old. Many of the planets in our galaxy are millions and even billions of years old. If intelligent life had developed on any of these planets, they would have had a big head start on humans. With that much time to develop space travel, we should have been visited by aliens many times.
So where is everyone? Conspiracy theorists believe that aliens have visited earth many times. They think the governments of the world are part of a big cover-up. Some believe that we have also been visited many times in the past. They point to the Egyptian pyramids or the large heads of Easter Island. They say that there was no way that humans could have created them without alien help.
Harvard professor Avi Loeb says we have been visited by aliens. And we have concrete proof. In 2017, a cigar-shaped object passed through our solar system. It was named Oumuamua, which means ‘messenger’ in Hawaiian. Loeb says that its unusual shape and how it sped up as it left our solar system sets it apart from anything else we’ve seen. He thinks it was a probe sent by aliens. Astrophysicist Jackie Fairey says everyone should take that claim with a grain of salt. She is one of many scientists who say there are other explanations for Oumuamua. That hasn’t stopped Professor Loeb from doubling down on his ideas. He has written a new book on Oumuamua called Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth.
References:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/nov/04/planets-galaxy-life-kepler
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2021/01/04/a-harvard-astronomer-is-more-confident-than-ever-that-an-alien-probe-visited-us-in-2017/?sh=63e3f4b25722
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