![]() Radio astronomy was discovered by accident. ![]() Our primary method involves radio astronomy. To try and answer this question, scientists have attempted to detect possible communications from beyond the Earth. These conflicting ideas, the likelihood of other civilisations, and our lack of contact with them, is now known as the ‘ Fermi Paradox’. One that was most famously summarised by Italian physicist Enrico Fermi, when discussing the question with his colleagues: In the ensuing decades, other scientists have applied their own figures, and come up with a range of answers, everything from 1 (meaning we are alone in the universe), to many millions.īut if there is a chance that other intelligent life is out there, somewhere, another question arises. The Drake equation, where ‘N’ equals the number of other civilisations in our galaxy.ĭrake’s original calculation arrived at an answer of 20 other galactic civilisations. An escalating order of difficulty to provide an overall estimate of the occurrence of intelligent life. To arrive at an estimate of the number of civilisations in our galaxy, Drake combined estimates of contributing factors the number of stars, planets, habitable planets, habitable planets where life may arise, and so on. In 1961, American astronomer Frank Drake formulated the ‘Drake Equation’, an attempt to give a mathematical structure to this question. Some effort has even been made to calculate the probability. With so many world’s available, many scientists think that life elsewhere is close to inevitable. And many of these, accompanied by orbiting planets. In 2021, NASA estimated there are about 200 billion galaxies, containing 10 to the power of 22 (1 followed by 23 zeros) worth of stars. In fact, its infinite: a boundary-less, still expanding, expanse.Īmong the endless stretch of space, a finite, though still very large, number of stars. Space, as Douglas Adams observed, is really big. 5 500 galaxies visible in Hubble’s ‘Deep Field’ view, covering a patch of sky about half the diameter of the moon. In 1977 astronomers detected the Wow Signal, a short powerful burst of radio waves from deep space.
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