It ’s a question that has been pondered many , many times before : If other satellite are so plentiful , then why have we never seen any other sprightliness in the universe ? have it away as the Fermi Paradox , this question continue to confound scientists – but one team think they have an answer .
A cogitation contribute by stargazer from Harvard University and the University of Oxford ( to be published in theJournal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics , pre - print onarXiv ) speculates that spirit on Earth might have form relatively early in the universe . This , they say , could explicate why we seem to be alone at the moment .
“ If we are very former , if we are untimely in cosmic time , that explains why we have n’t yet seen any other civilizations around , ” Rafael Batista , a study carbon monoxide - author from the University of Oxford , told IFLScience . “ We might be the first ones , or one of the first ones . ”
They notehow life in the universe could not have begun until 10 million years after the Big Bang , when stars give rise to the elements necessary for spirit such as carbon and oxygen . But there are a host of important factor in find out whether life can exist . One of these is the mass of a star , which dictates how long it can cling around for – the higher its mass , the short its lifespan .
Stars that are three time more massive than our Sun will likely confront their death before life has a chance to evolve . But stars less than 10 percent of our Sun ’s mass , red dwarfs , can survive for 10 trillion old age , give plenty of time for animation to take hold . This mean that the further into the future you go , the more likely it is for life to exist .
Batista added that while it is likely simple life sentence exists elsewhere , it can take a long time for complex life history like us to germinate – and it demand a very static surroundings . Consider that on Earth , which is 4.5 billion years old , the first complex life did n’t come up until at least 3 billion years ago , and the first New mankind not until 200,000 yr ago .
If life can be around low stack stars , then that pose us in the first 0.14 percent of the inhabitable period of the universe of discourse . While there may be other habitable planets out there , mayhap we are one of the unchanging few that has seen complex , sentient life take shape so far .
All promise is not lost , though . In our beetleweed alone , there are billions of planets , many of which may be inhabitable . One would go for , then , that there should be others that have life story like us even today .
" It ’s not all doomsday and sombreness , " articulate Batista .
