Here's what will happen to Earth when our galaxy collides with the Andromeda galaxy

[Bratva]

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The life form on mother earth in it's current form ain't the only one, Creator of universe created.

 

[Malik Alashter]

The life form on mother earth in it's current form ain't the only one, Creator of universe created.

It,s ok, but we talk about life form that similar to the human being. not jin or other unseen life form bro.

OK, I can't believe that there are another intelligent life form on the milky way while we couldn't receive any signal so far!!! why?

because through out the time if there were one with advanced tech they should use the same approach we human used the last 70 or so years.

since the physics are the same so if they had used radio waves that wave travel through space to millions may be billions light years and that exactly what they do now by sending signals to the space hoping some one listing to it.
So, within the last few billion years in our galaxy if there were another intelligent life form they must had used in one time the same technology to communicate hence we should receive any of that if it happened.

 

[T90TankGuy]

Shutterstock Take a good, hard look at the Milky Way Galaxy in the image above — eventually, this view will be completely destroyed by a collision of galactic proportions.

Earth itself will survive, but when this galactic war happens, Earth's night sky will look like nothing any human being has ever seen before.

An epic war is coming: A gruesome battle between two, gigantic galaxies will be well underway in just a few billion years, and one of the contenders is our home, the Milky Way.

Right now, the Andromeda galaxy is racing toward the Milky Way at a speed of 250,000 mph — fast enough to circle the world in just six minutes. And it's scheduled to collide, head-on, with the Milky Way in approximately 3.75 billion years.

Once Andromeda reaches us, a cataclysmic dance lasting over billions of years will follow. To a distant observer, a time-lapse of this event will look something like the gif below:

It's hard to imagine that our solar system could survive such a violent event, but experts say that it likely will.

"The reason we think that our solar system will not be much affected by this collision... is that galaxies are mostly empty space," said Roeland van der Marel in a ScienceTV video. Marel is a scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. "Even though our galaxy, as well as the Andromeda galaxy, has 100 billion stars in it, they're very far apart."

Not only will the solar system survive, but Earth will see a spectacular show as the galaxies merge:

ScienceTV on YouTube As time marches on, the bloodshed will continue until, finally, the central supermassive black holes in each galaxy will get close enough to each other to meet and merge.
By that point, the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies — two, separate spiral galaxies — will be no more. Our solar system will have a new home in an entirely different class of galaxy, called an elliptical galaxy.

After six billion years of cosmic carnage, Earth's night sky would be ablaze with the elliptical galaxy's bright, new core, if it weren't for the fact that the Sun will likely swallow Earth in about five billion years. The picture below is what the sky would look like on Earth if it the planet was around to see the end of the galaxy war:

ScienceTV on YouTube Andromeda is currently 2.5 million light years from Earth. As it inches closer, the Milky Way's suck of gravity will grow stronger, pulling Andromeda closer and faster — the same way a ball in the air moves faster as it falls toward Earth.

In just four billion years, the Milky Way and Andromeda will have tugged and ripped at one another's throats. The remains will be a ghostly skeleton of what was once two independent galaxies:

ScienceTV on YouTube The solar system won't be entirely unaffected during this collision. Gravity will likely tug the Sun into a new orbit, dragging Earth and the other planets with it. But even though the Milky Way and Andromeda each have 100 billion stars, it's unlikely that many will meet.

"If two galaxies actually collide with each other the stars basically pass right between each other, and the chance of two stars directly hitting each other is really, really small," said van der Marel in the video.

This imminent collision is not the first time galaxies have been driven together by their mutual gravitational attraction. In fact, the famous Hubble Space Telescope has photographed many cases of galaxy collisions, which is why astronomers like van der Marel can predict what it will look like when the Milky Way's time comes.

Because it takes billions of years for galaxies to fully merge, astronomers search the skies for different stages of the epic battle. Below is an example of two spiral galaxies in an early stage or merging, photographed by Hubble in 2009:

@levina @scorpionx @Skull and Bones @Guynextdoor2 @DRAY @AUSTERLITZ @wolfschanzze @SarthakGanguly @Prometheus and others fighting for and against AAP & BJP. Take a break and see the video and read.

You forgot to tag me again

 

[oFFbEAT]

Sigh! This is why a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. This is also why I hate journalists reporting scientific issues in such a lax manner.

"Habitability" in that context refers to the ability of a planet to sustain a carbon based life form - and particularly, multi cellular organisms. For that to happen, there are many prerequisites - a continous source of energy (like our sun), certain specific orbital patterns, certain chemical environment, and so on. If all such conditions are met, then we say that that planet has a chance of life evolving on it.

And that is what it is - habitability in that context does not refer to the place being fit for humans to live - it just means that life (in some form) could evolve, or may have already evolved. But understand that any such life that evolved there would be vastly different from what we see on earth. You will not see cats and dogs and horses and humans there, and there really is no way for anybody to predict what those life forms would be like.

In fact, even on earth, so many variables shaped the course of evolution. There have been five mass extinctions in the planet's history, which wiped out 90% of all life forms present at that time. If those events had not happened, then we don't know what life on earth would look like today. But it is nearly impossible that the organisms we see today (including humans) would be present today. That's just one example. Glacial events like ice ages, volcanic eruptions, and many such incidents are the reason we are here today.

The point I am trying to make is that all those planets that are "hospitable for life" are not hospitable for humans. That is just way too improbable. It just means that life can form and evolve there. And it will be hospitable for those organisms. (Actually, those organisms would be adapted to that planet, just as we all evolved to adapt to our surroundings).

TL/DR version : "Planetary habitability" does not mean habitable for humans.

Planetary habitability - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Who said, 'Planetary habitability' has to mean, habitable for humans??
You assumed that because you're unable to incorporate the role of technology in your linear way of thinking.....you think, for humans to survive in another planet, the situation will have to be exactly similar to that of Earth's, you're unable to understand that, even if the conditions are not exactly similar, humans can still survive with the help of technology.....
of-course, the more suitable the place, the lesser effort they'll have to put in to survive, that's why they keep on looking for the best possible place......but, with continuous advancement in technology, dependency on environment will gradually reduce and the need to find life supporting planets(only for the purpose of survival) will gradually reduce too.....they might keep on looking for such planets for different purpose though.....

Thus, your clarification on 'habitability' is totally irrelevant in this context, you're not thinking or unable to think beyond a certain limit, unable to incorporate other possibilities/ideas into your linear way of thinking......you're unable to comprehend what others are saying, which makes you think that others have little/insufficient knowledge and makes you say irrelevant and pointless things.....

 

[thesolar65]

You forgot to tag me again

 

[janon]

Thus, your clarification on 'habitability' is totally irrelevant in this context, you're not thinking or unable to think beyond a certain limit, unable to incorporate other possibilities/ideas into your linear way of thinking......you're unable to comprehend what others are saying, which makes you think that others have little/insufficient knowledge and makes you say irrelevant and pointless things.....

Actually it was your mentioning of "billions of habitable planets" that was irrelevant. We were discussing whether humans can colonize other planets. (You said, in a few decades.) I said that we know there are no hospitable planets in our galaxy, which in the context obviously means hospitable for humans, not for life in general. You called that "disinformation" and gave me a link of a scientist claiming that there are billions of habitable planets - and that is irrelevant, because he is talking about habitable for life to form, not habitable by humans in particular. It is you who are misleadingly bringing irrelevant things into the discussion.

Anyway since you seem more interested in arguing and mudslinging rather than objectively understanding, I don't really want to continue. I have made my point, and it stands - that we know that there are no planets in our galaxy that are suitable for humans to live. Even colonizing Antarctica would be impossible in the foreseeable future, which is why nobody is attempting even that.

Who said, 'Planetary habitability' has to mean, habitable for humans??

Habitable for humans was the point under discussion, because I was saying that there are no such planets in our galaxy. Your providing a link about "billions of habitable planets" was a complete irrelevancy, because there "habitability" is not about human habitability.

 

[ArsalanKhan21]

As per Islamic history, Djinns used to roam the earth before the creation of Man

The life form on mother earth in it's current form ain't the only one, Creator of universe created.

Keep religious myths out of science !!!

 

[oFFbEAT]

Actually it was your mentioning of "billions of habitable planets" that was irrelevant. We were discussing whether humans can colonize other planets. (You said, in a few decades.) I said that we know there are no hospitable planets in our galaxy, which in the context obviously means hospitable for humans, not for life in general. You called that "disinformation" and gave me a link of a scientist claiming that there are billions of habitable planets - and that is irrelevant, because he is talking about habitable for life to form, not habitable by humans in particular. It is you who are misleadingly bringing irrelevant things into the discussion....

lol, you either totally missed the point or purposely trying not to acknowledge it....

Yes, I said humans can colonize other planets in a few decades based on the fact that already the process of colonizing Mars has begun....

What do you mean by "hospitable for humans"? Exactly Earth like environment??
If you think humans cannot survive without exact Earth like conditions then you are being incredibly stupid, 'cause it has been so many years now that humans are surviving in harsh/uninhabitable conditions such as Antarctica, Space etc........yes! right now, it takes a lot of effort and money, but with technological advancement things will require lesser human effort and become more viable.....I've said that quite a number of times, you're purposely overlooking the technological advancement factor.....
Therefore, a habitable/hospitable planet according to the scientists doesn't mean that humans will be able to live there directly without any support, it means, the planet fulfills certain criteria to support carbon-based life forms and since humans are Carbon-based life forms too, they will have to put in less effort to survive in a condition that supports other carbon-based life forms....that's the idea.
So, your information that there are no habitable planet where humans can survive, is indeed disinformation.

Anyway since you seem more interested in arguing and mudslinging rather than objectively understanding, I don't really want to continue. I have made my point, and it stands - that we know that there are no planets in our galaxy that are suitable for humans to live. Even colonizing Antarctica would be impossible in the foreseeable future, which is why nobody is attempting even that....

"little knowledge is dangerous" my friend, you don't even know about the 'Antarctic Treaty System' and you're talking about Antarctica...
Nobody attempted to colonize Antarctica in the past due to its harsh environment, now people have the technological ability to colonize it but it is protected by 'Antarctic Treaty System' which prohibits any kind of military activity by any country in that place.....

 

[XenoEnsi-14]

This of course relies on the assumption that we aren't alone. As strange as it seems in a universe its size, we must still account for that. While I believe alien life exists beyond Earth, only that we've yet to encounter any such life, I'll provide another argument:

The Fermi Paradox

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Everyone feels something when they're in a really good starry place a really good starry place on a really good starry night and they look up and see this:

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Some people stick with the traditional, feeling struck by the epic beauty or blown away by the insane scale of the universe. Personally, I go for the old "existential meltdown followed by acting weird for the next half hour." But everyone feels something.

Physicist Enrico Fermi felt something too—"Where is everybody?"

A really starry sky seems vast—but all we're looking at is our very local neighborhood. On the very best nights, we can see up to about 2,500 stars (roughly one hundred-millionth of the stars in our galaxy), and almost all of them are less than 1,000 light years away from us (or 1% of the diameter of the Milky Way). So what we're really looking at is this:

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When confronted with the topic of stars and galaxies, a question that tantalizes most humans is, "Is there other intelligent life out there?" Let's put some numbers to it (if you don't like numbers, just read the bold)—

As many stars as there are in our galaxy (100 – 400 billion), there are roughly an equal number of galaxies in the observable universe—so for every star in the colossal Milky Way, there's a whole galaxy out there. All together, that comes out to the typically quoted range of between 10^22 and 10^24 total stars in the universe, which means that for every grain of sand on Earth, there are 10,000 stars out there.

The science world isn't in total agreement about what percentage of those stars are "sun-like" (similar to our sun in size, temperature, and luminosity)—opinions typically range from 5% to 20%. Going with the most conservative side of that (5%), and the lower end for the number of total stars (10^22), gives us 500 quintillion, or 500 billion billion sun-like stars.

There's also a debate over what percentage of those sun-like stars might be orbited by an Earth-like planet (one with similar temperature conditions that could have liquid water and potentially support life similar to that on Earth). Some say it's as high as 50%, but let's go with the more conservative 22% that came out of a recent PNAS study. That suggests that there's a potentially-habitable Earth-like planet orbiting at least 1% of the total stars in the universe—a total of 100 billion billion Earth-like planets.

So there are 100 Earth-like planets for every grain of sand in the world. Think about that next time you're on the beach.

Moving forward, we have no choice but to get completely speculative. Let's imagine that after billions of years in existence, 1% of Earth-like planets develop life (if that's true, every grain of sand would represent one planet with life on it). And imagine that on 1% of those planets, the life advances to an intelligent level like it did here on Earth. That would mean there were 10 quadrillion, or 10 million billion intelligent civilizations in the observable universe.

Moving back to just our galaxy, and doing the same math on the lowest estimate for stars in the Milky Way (100 billion), we'd estimate that there are 1 billion Earth-like planets and 100,000 intelligent civilizations in our galaxy. (The Drake Equation provides a formal method for this narrowing-down process we're doing.)

SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is an organization dedicated to listening for signals from other intelligent life. If we're right that there are 100,000 or more intelligent civilizations in our galaxy, and even a fraction of them are sending out radio waves or laser beams or other modes of attempting to contact others, shouldn't SETI's satellite array pick up all kinds of signals?

But it hasn't. Not one. Ever.

Where is everybody?

It gets stranger. Our sun is relatively young in the lifespan of the universe. There are far older stars with far older Earth-like planets, which should in theory mean far more advanced civilizations than our own. As an example, let's compare our 4.54 billion-year-old Earth to a hypothetical 8 billion-year-old Planet X.

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If Planet X has a similar story to Earth, let's look at where their civilization would be today:

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The technology and knowledge of a civilization only 1,000 years ahead of us could be as shocking to us as our world would be to a medieval person. A civilization 1 million years ahead of us might be as incomprehensible to us as human culture is to chimpanzees. And Planet X is 3.4 billion years ahead of us…

There's something called The Kardashev Scale, which helps us group intelligent civilizations into three broad categories by the amount of energy they use:

A Type I Civilization has the ability to use all of the energy on their planet. We're not quite a Type I Civilization, but we're close (Carl Sagan created a formula for this scale which puts us at a Type 0.7 Civilization).

A Type II Civilization can harness all of the energy of their host star. Our feeble Type I brains can hardly imagine how someone would do this, but we've tried our best, imagining things like a Dyson Sphere.

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A Type III Civilization blows the other two away, accessing power comparable to that of the entire Milky Way galaxy.

If this level of advancement sounds hard to believe, remember Planet X above and their 3.4billion years of further development (about half a million times as long as the human race has been around). If a civilization on Planet X were similar to ours and were able to survive all the way to Type III level, the natural assumption is that they'd probably have mastered inter-stellar travel by now, possibly even colonizing the entire galaxy.

One hypothesis as to how galactic colonization could happen is by creating machinery that can travel to other planets, spend 500 years or so self-replicating using the raw materials on their new planet, and then send two replicas off to do the same thing. Even without traveling anywhere near the speed of light, this process would colonize the whole galaxy in 3.75 million years, a relative blink of an eye when talking in the scale of billions of years:

Continuing to speculate, if 1% of intelligent life survives long enough to become a potentially galaxy-colonizing Type III Civilization, our calculations above suggest that there should be at least 1,000 Type III Civilizations in our galaxy alone—and given the power of such a civilization, their presence would likely be pretty noticeable. And yet, we see nothing, hear nothing, and we're visited by no one.

So where is everybody?
Welcome to the Fermi Paradox.

We have no answer to the Fermi Paradox—the best we can do is "possible explanations." And if you ask ten different scientists what their hunch is about the correct one, you'll get ten different answers. You know when you hear about humans of the past debating whether the Earth was round or if the sun revolved around the Earth or thinking that lightning happened because of Zeus, and they seem so primitive and in the dark? That's about where we are with this topic.

In taking a look at some of the most-discussed possible explanations for the Fermi Paradox, let's divide them into two broad categories—those explanations which assume that there's no sign of Type II and Type III Civilizations because there arenone of them out there, and those which assume they're out there and we're not seeing or hearing anything for other reasons:

Explanation Group 1: There are no signs of higher (Type II and III) civilizations because there are no higher civilizations in existence.

Those who subscribe to Group 1 explanations point to something called the non-exclusivity problem, which rebuffs any theory that says, "There are higher civilizations, but none of them have made any kind of contact with us because they all _____." Group 1 people look at the math, which says there should be so many thousands (or millions) of higher civilizations, that at least one of them would be an exception to the rule. Even if a theory held for 99.99% of higher civilizations, the other .001% would behave differently and we'd become aware of their existence.

Therefore, say Group 1 explanations, it must be that there are no super-advanced civilizations. And since the math suggests that there are thousands of them just in our own galaxy,something else must be going on.

This something else is called The Great Filter.

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The Great Filter theory says that at some point from pre-life to Type III intelligence, there's a wall that all or nearly all attempts at life hit. There's some stage in that long evolutionary process that is extremely unlikely or impossible for life to get beyond. That stage is The Great Filter.

If this theory is true, the big question is, Where in the timeline does the Great Filter occur?

It turns out that when it comes to the fate of humankind, this question is very important. Depending on where The Great Filter occurs, we're left with three possible realities: We're rare, we're first, or we're fucked.

1. We're Rare (The Great Filter is Behind Us)

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One hope we have is that The Great Filter is behind us—we managed to surpass it, which would mean it's extremely rare for life to make it to our level of intelligence. The diagram below shows only two species making it past, and we're one of them.

This scenario would explain why there are no Type III Civilizations…but it would also mean thatwe could be one of the few exceptions now that we've made it this far. It would mean we have hope. On the surface, this sounds a bit like people 500 years ago suggesting that the Earth is the center of the universe—it implies that we'respecial. However, something scientists call "observation selection effect" says that anyone who is pondering their own rarity is inherently part of an intelligent life "success story"—and whether they're actually rare or quite common, the thoughts they ponder and conclusions they draw will be identical. This forces us to admit that being special is at least a possibility.

And if we are special, when exactly did we become special—i.e. which step did we surpass that almost everyone else gets stuck on?

One possibility: The Great Filter could be at the very beginning—it might be incredibly unusual for life to begin at all. This is a candidate because it took about a billion years of Earth's existence to finally happen, and because we have tried extensively to replicate that event in labs and have never been able to do it. If this is indeed The Great Filter, it would mean that not only is there no intelligent life out there, there may be no other life at all.

Another possibility: The Great Filter could be the jump from the simple prokaryote cell to the complex eukaryote cell. After prokaryotes came into being, they remained that way for almost two billion years before making the evolutionary jump to being complex and having a nucleus. If this is The Great Filter, it would mean the universe is teeming with simple prokaryote cells and almost nothing beyond that.

There are a number of other possibilities—some even think the most recent leap we've made to our current intelligence is a Great Filter candidate. While the leap from semi-intelligent life (chimps) to intelligent life (humans) doesn't at first seem like a miraculous step, Steven Pinkerrejects the idea of an inevitable "climb upward" of evolution: "Since evolution does not strive for a goal but just happens, it uses the adaptation most useful for a given ecological niche, and the fact that, on Earth, this led to technological intelligence only once so far may suggest that this outcome of natural selection is rare and hence by no means a certain development of the evolution of a tree of life."

Most leaps do not qualify as Great Filter candidates. Any possible Great Filter must be a one-in-a-billion type thing where one or more total freak occurrences need to happen to provide a crazy exception—for that reason, something like the jump from single-cell to multi-cellular life is ruled out, because it has occurred as many as 46 times, in isolated incidents, just on this planet alone. For the same reason, if we were to find a fossilized eukaryote cell on Mars, it would rule the above "simple-to-complex cell" leap out as a possible Great Filter (as well as anything before that point on the evolutionary chain)—because if it happened on both Earth and Mars, it's clearly not a one-in-a-billion freak occurrence.

If we are indeed rare, it could be because of a fluky biological event, but it also could be attributed to what is called the Rare Earth Hypothesis, which suggests that though there may be many Earth-like planets, the particular conditions on Earth—whether related to the specifics of this solar system, its relationship with the moon (a moon that large is unusual for such a small planet and contributes to our particular weather and ocean conditions), or something about the planet itself—are exceptionally friendly to life.

2. We're the First

For Group 1 Thinkers, if the Great Filter is not behind us, the one hope we have is that conditions in the universe are just recently, for the first time since the Big Bang, reaching a place that would allow intelligent life to develop. In that case, we and many other species may be on our way to super-intelligence, and it simply hasn't happened yet. We happen to be here at the right time to become one of the first super-intelligent civilizations.

One example of a phenomenon that could make this realistic is the prevalence of gamma-ray bursts, insanely huge explosions that we've observed in distant galaxies. In the same way that it took the early Earth a few hundred million years before the asteroids and volcanoes died down and life became possible, it could be that the first chunk of the universe's existence was full of cataclysmic events like gamma-ray bursts that would incinerate everything nearby from time to time and prevent any life from developing past a certain stage. Now, perhaps, we're in the midst of an astrobiological phase transition and this is the first time any life has been able to evolve for this long, uninterrupted.

3. We're Screwed (The Great Filter is Ahead of Us)

If we're neither rare nor early, Group 1 thinkers conclude that The Great Filter must be in our future. This would apply that life regularly evolves to where we are, but that something prevents life from going much further and reaching high intelligence in almost all cases—and we're unlikely to be an exception.

One possible future Great Filter is a regularly-occurring cataclysmic natural event, like the above-mentioned gamma-ray bursts, except they're unfortunately not done yet and it's just a matter of time before all life on Earth is suddenly wiped out by one. Another candidate is the possible inevitability that nearly all intelligent civilizations end up destroying themselves once a certain level of technology is reached.

This is why Oxford University philosopher Nick Bostrom says that "no news is good news." The discovery of even simple life on Mars would be devastating, because it would cut out a number of potential Great Filters behind us. And if we were to find fossilized complex life on Mars, Bostrom says "it would be by far the worst news ever printed on a newspaper cover," because it would mean The Great Filter is almost definitely ahead of us—ultimately dooming the species. Bostrom believes that when it comes to The Fermi Paradox, "the silence of the night sky is golden."

Explanation Group 2: Type II and III intelligent civilizations are out there—and there are logical reasons why we might not have heard from them.

Group 2 explanations get rid of any notion that we're rare or special or the first at anything—on the contrary, they believe in the Mediocrity Principle, whose starting point is that there is nothing unusual or rare about our galaxy, solar system, planet, or level of intelligence, until evidence proves otherwise. They're also much less quick to assume that the lack of evidence of higher intelligence beings is evidence of their nonexistence—emphasizing the fact that our search for signals stretches only about 100 light years away from us (0.1% across the galaxy) and has only been going on for under a century, a tiny amount of time. Group 2 thinkers have come up with a large array of possible explanations for the Fermi Paradox. Here are 10 of the most discussed:

Possibility 1) Super-intelligent life could very well have already visited Earth, but before we were here. In the scheme of things, sentient humans have only been around for about 50,000 years, a little blip of time. If contact happened before then, it might have made some ducks flip out and run into the water and that's it. Further, recorded history only goes back 5,500 years—a group of ancient hunter-gatherer tribes may have experienced some crazyalien shit, but they had no good way to tell anyone in the future about it.

Possibility 2) The galaxy has been colonized, but we just live in some desolate rural area of the galaxy. The Americas may have been colonized by Europeans long before anyone in a small Inuit tribe in far northern Canada realized it had happened. There could be an urbanization component to the interstellar dwellings of higher species, in which all the neighboring solar systems in a certain area are colonized and in communication, and it would be impractical and purposeless for anyone to deal with coming all the way out to the random part of the spiral where we live.

Possibility 3) The entire concept of physical colonization is a hilariously backward concept to a more advanced species. Remember the picture of the Type II Civilization above with the sphere around their star? With all that energy, they might have created a perfect environment for themselves that satisfies their every need. They might have hyper-advanced ways of reducing their need for resources and zero interest in leaving their happy utopia to explore the cold, empty, undeveloped universe.

An even more advanced civilization might view the entire physical world as a horribly primitive place, having long ago conquered their own biology and uploaded their brains to a virtual reality, eternal-life paradise. Living in the physical world of biology, mortality, wants, and needs might seem to them the way we view primitive ocean species living in the frigid, dark sea. FYI, thinking about another life form having bested mortality makes me incredibly jealous and upset.

Possibility 4) There are scary predator civilizations out there, and most intelligent life knows better than to broadcast any outgoing signals and advertise their location. This is an unpleasant concept and would help explain the lack of any signals being received by the SETI satellites. It also means that we might be the super naive newbies who are being unbelievably stupid and risky by ever broadcasting outward signals. There's a debate going on currently about whether we should engage in METI (Messaging to Extraterrestrial Intelligence—the reverse of SETI, which only listens) or not, and most people say we should not. Stephen Hawking warns, "If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans." Even Carl Sagan (a general believer that any civilization advanced enough for interstellar travel would be altruistic, not hostile) called the practice of METI "deeply unwise and immature," and recommended that "the newest children in a strange and uncertain cosmos should listen quietly for a long time, patiently learning about the universe and comparing notes, before shouting into an unknown jungle that we do not understand." Scary.[2]

Possibility 5) There's one and only one instance of higher-intelligent life—a "superpredator" civilization (kind of like humans are here on Earth)—who isfarmore advanced than everyone else and keeps it that way by exterminating any intelligent civilization once they get past a certain level. This would suck. The way it might work is that it's an inefficient use of resources to exterminate all emerging intelligences, maybe because most die out on their own. But past a certain point, the super beings make their move—because to them, an emerging intelligent species becomes like a virus as it starts to grow and spread. This theory suggests that whoever was the first in the galaxy to reach intelligence won, and now no one else has a chance. This would explain the lack of activity out there because it would keep the number of super-intelligent civilizations to just one.

Possibility 6) There's plenty of activity and noise out there, but our technology is too primitive and we're listening for the wrong things. Like walking into a modern-day office building, turning on a walkie-talkie, and when you hear no activity (which of course you wouldn't hear because everyone's texting, not using walkie-talkies), determining that the building must be empty. Or maybe, as Carl Sagan has pointed out, it could be that our minds work exponentially faster or slower than another form of intelligence out there—e.g. it takes them 12 years to say "Hello," and when we hear that communication, it just sounds like white noise to us.

Possibility 7) We are receiving contact from other intelligent life, but the government is hiding it. This is an idiotic theory, but I had to mention it because it's talked about so much.

Possibility 8) Higher civilizations are aware of us and observing us but concealing themselves from us (AKA the "Zoo Hypothesis"). As far as we know, super-intelligent civilizations exist in a tightly-regulated galaxy, and our Earth is treated like part of a vast and protected national park, with a strict "Look but don't touch" rule for planets like ours. We wouldn't be aware of them, because if a far smarter species wanted to observe us, it would know how to easily do so without us noticing. Maybe there's a rule similar to the Star Trek's "Prime Directive" which prohibits super-intelligent beings from making any open contact with lesser species like us or revealing themselves in any way, until the lesser species has reached a certain level of intelligence.

Possibility 9) Higher civilizations are here, all around us, but we're too primitive to perceive them. Michio Kaku sums it up like this:

Lets say we have an ant hill in the middle of the forest. And right next to the ant hill, they're building a ten-lane super-highway. And the question is "Would the ants be able to understand what a ten-lane super-highway is? Would the ants be able to understand the technology and the intentions of the beings building the highway next to them?"

So it's not that we can't pick up the signals from Planet X using our technology, it's that we can't even comprehend what the beings from Planet X are or what they're trying to do. It's so beyond us that even if they really wanted to enlighten us, it would be like trying to teach ants about the internet.

Along those lines, this may also be an answer to "Well if there are so many fancy Type III Civilizations, why haven't they contacted us yet?" To answer that, let's ask ourselves—when Pizarro made his way into Peru, did he stop for a while at an anthill to try to communicate? Was he magnanimous, trying to help the ants in the anthill? Did he become hostile and slow his original mission down in order to smash the anthill apart? Or was the anthill of complete and utter and eternal irrelevance to Pizarro? That might be our situation here.

Possibility 10) We're completely wrong about our reality. There are a lot of ways we could just be totally off with everything we think. The universe might appear one way and be something else entirely, like a hologram. Or maybe we're the aliens and we were planted here as an experiment or as a form of fertilizer. There's even a chance that we're all part of a computer simulation by some researcher from another world, and other forms of life simply weren't programmed into the simulation.

As we continue along with our possibly-futile search for extraterrestrial intelligence, I'm not really sure what I'm rooting for. Frankly, learning either that we're officially alone in the universe or that we're officially joined by others would be creepy, which is a theme with all of the surreal storylines listed above—whatever the truth actually is, it's mindblowing.

Beyond its shocking science fiction component, The Fermi Paradox also leaves me with a deep humbling. Not just the normal "Oh yeah, I'm microscopic and my existence lasts for three seconds" humbling that thinking about the universe always triggers. The Fermi Paradox brings out a sharper, more personal humbling, one that can only happen after spending hours of research hearing your species' most renowned scientists present insane theories, change their minds again and again, and wildly contradict each other—reminding us that future generations will look at us in the same way we see the ancient people who were sure that the stars were the underside of the dome of heaven, and they'll think "Wow they really had no idea what was going on."

Compounding all of this is the blow to our species' self-esteem that comes with all of this talk about Type II and III Civilizations. Here on Earth, we're the king of our little castle, proud ruler of the huge group of imbeciles who share the planet with us. And in this bubble with no competition and no one to judge us, it's rare that we're ever confronted with the concept of being a dramatically inferior species to anyone. But after spending a lot of time with Type II and III Civilizations over the past week, our power and pride are seeming a bit David Brent-esque.

That said, given that my normal outlook is that humanity is a lonely orphan on a tiny rock in the middle of a desolate universe, the humbling fact that we're probably not as smart as we think we are, and the possibility that a lot of what we're sure about might be wrong, soundswonderful. It opens the door just a crack that maybe, just maybe, there might be more to the story than we realize.

@thesolar65 @timetravel @Gabriel92 @Jungibaaz @Nihonjin1051 @xudeen @levina @scorpionx @Skull and Bones @Guynextdoor2 @DRAY @AUSTERLITZ @wolfschanzze @SarthakGanguly @Prometheus - thoughts?

Speaking of a Fermi Paradox, if there is no other living thing outside our planet then the human race could advance to a stage I, II, III civilization propagating life on other planets and letting evolve to a certain point not allowing intelligent life form to evolve. Then we become a Fermi Paradox, but then the Galactic Empire collapses and the Fermi Paradox no longer exists.

Also it's possible that the Fermi Paradox is an illusion because not only is everybody listening, but nobody knows what to listen for and so we think there is a Fermi Paradox. It won't be until we and other races simultaneously reach a stage III Civilization and everyone is like WTF where did you come from?

 

[ArsalanKhan21]

The Big Bang may never have happened: scientists

The Big Bang may never have happened: scientists

February 11, 2015
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As crazy as it sounds, we've all kind of accepted the part of the Big Bang Theory that says the universe started as a single point around 13.8 billion years ago. The thing is – a lot of theoretical physicists aren't enthralled with that idea, as a lot of widely-accepted general relativity equations start to break down as you approach the "singularity".

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

As crazy as it sounds, we've all kind of accepted the part of the Big Bang Theory that says the universe started as a single point around 13.8 billion years ago. The thing is – a lot of theoretical physicists aren't enthralled with that idea, as a lot of widely-accepted general relativity equations start to break down as you approach the "singularity".

One recently published study asked the question: What if the there was no Big Bang and the universe has been around since…forever?

"The Big Bang singularity is the most serious problem of general relativity because the laws of physics appear to break down there," Ahmed Farag Ali, a physics lecturer at Benha University in Egypt, told Phys.org.

No singularity, no "big crunch"

Published in the journal Physics Letters B, the new study from Ali and his co-author Saurya Das resolved questions around the singularity with an entirely new model based on concepts put forward by the unorthodox theoretical physicist David Bohm in 1950. The study team said they were particularly interested in Bohm's investigations into quantum trajectories.

In the new study, Ali and Das applied Bohm's equations to an equation formulated by physicist Amal Kumar Raychaudhuri while working at Presidency University in India. The theoretical model the two physicists came up with does not predict a Big Bang singularity. It also does not predict a "big crunch," or the theory that gravity will cause the universe to eventually collapses in on itself, returning to a singular point.

The researchers said their model doesn't predict singularities because of a major difference between classical and quantum trajectories: classical trajectories eventually cross each other and quantum trajectories never do.

Quantum fluid

The study scientists also argued that their quantum modifications can be thought of as a universal constant that disposes of the need for dark energy, on which the current Big Bang Theory is based. The new study terms maintain that the universe has a specific size and, therefore an unlimited age. The calculations also make predictions that agree strongly with current findings and observations of the universe, the researchers said.

The new study also puts forward the idea of a universe filled with a quantum fluid that might be made of gravitons-theoretical massless particles that regulate gravity. If gravitons exist, they are suspected of play a major role in a theory of quantum gravity.

The study authors noted that their model was not applied ad hoc in an attempt to challenge the Big Bang singularity. However, they said they are now motivated by the possibility of resolving the Big Bang singularity and accounting for both dark matter and dark energy. The study team said they plan to apply their model more rigorously in the future and this upcoming work should include reworking their calculations while considering additional factors. They said these additional considerations should not significantly affect their current conclusions.

"It is satisfying to note that such straightforward corrections can potentially resolve so many issues at once," Das said.

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