We are talking about contradictions. The Fermi paradox describes the apparent incongruity between the fact that we have not yet found evidence of extraterrestrial life despite the fact that, according to estimates, we should have already discovered it due to the high probability that other intelligent civilizations exist in our observable universe.
Finding life beyond Earth, whether inside or outside our solar system, is a challenge for humanity. So far, the Voyager space probes, the Cassini-Huygens mission, and the New Horizons spacecraft have explored a wide range of our solar system without success. Mercury, Venus, the Moon, Mars, Ceres and Vesta, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto … but none of our exploration efforts have led us to anything conclusive.
are we alone in the universe?
Precisely the Fermi paradox attempts to answer this question. Given that our star and Earth are part of a young planetary system compared to the rest of the universe, and that interstellar travel could be quite easy to achieve, the theory says that Earth should have already been visited by aliens.
Apparently, the approach to this theory dates back to when the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi, creator of the first nuclear reactor (and Nobel Prize winner in Physics), made an informal comment at lunch in 1950. He reflected on the fact that any civilization with a modest amount of rocket technology could rapidly colonize the entire galaxy. Based on his rough figures, he argued that Earth should have already been visited by aliens. Subsequently, an article by American astrophysicist Michael H. Hart in 1975 who published a detailed examination of Fermi’s own paradox, aroused the curiosity of scientists and they began to study the question of “where are the aliens?” more details.
To think that humans are so special to be alone in the vast universe is somewhat arrogant and, as we have seen, it is also not supported statistically given the abundance of star systems and habitable planets that we have found in the data from our telescopes. And yet, despite these great odds in favor of extraterrestrial life, we still haven’t found anyone.
Why haven’t we heard from them?
The simplest answer to the Fermi paradox has to do with physical challenges. Interstellar travel is difficult, we already know that; but not impossible. We’ve already accomplished this feat with two separate spacecraft (Voyager 1 and Voyager 2), and while traveling to another star system is more complicated than traveling to the Moon, it’s essentially just about scaling the “problem .” Aliens could use all sorts of technologies to colonize the galaxy. The question posed here is why no alien civilization has yet undertaken this kind of growth that could have led to us.
Where are they?
Today there are numerous potential ‘solutions’ to the Fermi paradox, some of them are:
- We overestimate the prevalence of intelligent life in the universe
- We are looking in the wrong places
- Intelligent life is hibernating
- It is too early to detect other civilizations.
