Are we alone?
This query has plagued humankind since time immemorial. And but, we nonetheless don’t have a conclusive reply. Regardless of our unimaginable technological developments, we’ve by no means obtained a reputable radio sign from, and even the teeniest hint of, extraterrestrial life past Earth.
The present hunt for alien life consists of: the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, which has scoured the skies for radio alerts from clever beings since its founding in 1984; the Kepler space telescope, which noticed greater than 500,000 stars throughout its mission, confirming greater than 2,500 exoplanets; and extra lately, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which simply took its first direct image of an exoplanet.
Maybe probably the most tantalizing potential sign from an extraterrestrial civilization is the well-known Wow! Signal. This very transient, however very intense, radio sign was detected by Ohio State College’s Huge Ear Radio Telescope Aug. 15, 1977, and it lasted for 1 minute and 12 seconds. The sign was so intriguing that astronomer Jerry Ehman enthusiastically wrote the phrase “Wow!” on the info printout.
Most now agree the Wow! Sign is unlikely to be from aliens. However in a current May 2022 study printed within the Worldwide Journal of Astrobiology, researchers recognized a possible source of the Wow! Signal: a Solar-like star a bit greater than 1,800 gentle years from Earth.
Nonetheless, the query stays: Are we alone?
“The one right reply to this query [for now] is that we do not know,” Manasvi Lingam, an astrobiologist and Assistant Professor within the Division of Aerospace, Physics, and Area Sciences on the Florida Institute of Expertise, tells Astronomy.
“With that stated,” he provides, “I’m hopeful of the existence of extraterrestrial life, given the variety of doubtlessly liveable worlds and the continued thrilling analysis into the origin(s) of life.”
How seemingly are we to seek out life elsewhere within the universe?
Two of probably the most iconic insights associated to the opportunity of technological civilizations current elsewhere within the universe are the Fermi Paradox and the Drake equation, which have been formulated by Enrico Fermi and Frank Drake, respectively.
