Many more solar systems are yet to form in the cosmos.
By Raif Karerat
A new study has provided a fascinating postulation about our failure to detect intelligent life anywhere else in the cosmos — humanity could be among the first.
The study, published Tuesday in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, is purely theoretical in nature, but is a poignant thought experiment nonetheless.
Researchers Peter Behroozi and Molly Peeples, both of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Md., “used data from the Kepler and Hubble space telescopes to estimate Earth’s position on the timeline of habitable world evolution.”
They researchers found that — while star formation has slowed down overall throughout the universe, and the Milky Way is running out of star-forming gas — most other galaxies have so much star-making material left that they’ll be able to keep churning out solar systems for an astronomically long time.
According to Peeples and Behroozi’s calculations, only about 8 percent of habitable planets that the universe has the potential to create had been created when our own planet was born, which means an astounding 92 percent of habitable planets have yet to be conceived by the great cosmic maw.
“Our main motivation was understanding the Earth’s place in the context of the rest of the universe,” Behroozi told Discovery News. “Compared to all the planets that will ever form in the universe, the Earth is actually quite early.”
“There is enough remaining material (after the Big Bang) to produce even more planets in the future, in the Milky Way and beyond,” added Peeples.
Noted by the researchers is that the advantage of being an “early” civilization evolving at this point in the universe’s evolution is that we have the opportunity to study the early stages of cosmic evolution, using space telescopes such as Hubble to gain sights into the early formation of galaxies and witness observable evidence for the Big Bang.
For any future civilizations down the road, possibly in a trillion years’ time, the universe will look like a vastly different place.
3 Comments
It is not theoretical. It is hypothetical. There is no evidence whatsoever.
which part, that we are first?
A theory is the highest form of scientific inquiry. It requires facts in evidence with observations, measurements and calculation. A theory is never believed. There is no ‘if’ in science. There is only what “is.”