The Fermiparadox and Life Beyond

by Casper Balch

On December 25, 2021, NASA’s new and improved infrared space observatory, named the “James Webb Space Telescope” (JWST), launched at the European Space Agency’s launch site, at Kourou in French Guiana, at 7:20 am (Howell, Dobrijevic, 2022). Webb is NASA’s largest and most powerful space science telescope, equipped with huge space instruments (similar to the Hubble Space Telescope), with Webb’s primary mirror measuring 6.5 meters (or 21 feet, 4 inches) across; the largest mirror to ever be launched into space (according to NASA). The main goal of this massive hunk of metal (more specifically, a massive hunk of gold-plated Beryllium and Kapton) is to probe the cosmos to uncover the history of the universe: from the “Big Bang,” to alien planet formations and beyond (Howell, Dobrijevic, 2022).

Imagine

what we could uncover?

The observable universe is about 90 billion light-years across in diameter (about 5.29076283587e+23 miles), giving us plenty of room to explore.

According to NASA, Webb will be able to see what the universe looked like about 25 million (25,000,000) years after the Big Bang

(when the first stars and galaxies began to form) by sensing infrared light 13.7 billion (13,700,000,000) light-years away; meaning it can look 13.7 billion years back in time. To give some perspective, our galaxy, the “Milky Way,” is about 13 billion (13,000,000,000) years old: Earth is only 4 billion (4,000,000,000) years old, and humanity is a mere 2 million (2,000,000) years old; only 24 hours on the Cosmic Calander (a scale in which the 13.7 billion year lifespan of our universe is mapped into a single year; created by famous astronomer Carl Sagan). In the observable universe, there are at least 100 billion (100,000,000) galaxies each with 100 to 1,000 billion (100,000,000-1,000,000,000,000) stars (Kurzgesagt, 2015). Scientists assume that there are about 20 billion (20,000,000,000) sun-like stars in the Milky Way, with 40 billion (40,000,000,000) Earth-like planets in the habitable zone of those stars (otherwise known as the “Circumstellar Habitable Zone” or the“Goldilocks Zone”) (Kurzgesagt, 2020). If only 0.1% of those planets harbored life, there would be 1 million (1,000,000) planets with life in the Milky Way (Kurzgesagt, 2020). Shouldn’t our galaxy be teeming with life, and if so, why have we not found any yet: this is called the “Fermi Paradox,” and nobody has an answer to it, but we do have some ideas (which will be explained further on) (Kurzgesagt, 2015). Since the Earth came about 4 billion (4,000,000,000) years ago, there have 90 likely been trillions of chances for life to develop on other planets (Kurzgesagt, 2015). If only one of them had developed into a space-traveling, super civilization, we would have noticed by now (Kurzgesagt, 2015).

Based on the “Kardashev Scale,” a method of ranking civilizations by their energy use (developed by Nikolai Kardashev; a Soviet and Russian astrophysicist, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, and the deputy director of the Astro Space Center of PN Lebedev Physical civilizations: a Type 1 civilization who can use the available energy of their home planet, a Type 2 civilization who can use the available energy of their star and planetary system, a Type 3 civilization who can use the available energy of their galaxy, and a Type 4 civilization who can use the available energy of multiple galaxies. These levels differ by magnitude, like comparing an ant colony to a human metropolitan area (Kurzgesagt, 2020). On the lower end of the spectrum, there are Type 0 to Type 1 civilizations (Type 0-Type 1): from hunt-

Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow), there are four different categories of er-gatherers to something we could achieve in the next few hundred years (Kurzgesagt 2020). 91 of) correct, then we can be (pretty) sure that there are no civilizations of Type 3 and beyond near the Milky Way: their influence would (in all likelihood) be so all-encompassing, and their technology so far above our own, that we could not miss them, since the galaxy would flash with their activity in thousands of star systems (Kurzgesagt, 2020).

Civilizations like those might be abundant in the Milky Way, but if they are not actively trying to communicate, we will/would have no way of realizing they exist since the Milky Way is 100,000 lights years wide and after a few light-years radio signals decay into noise, becoming impossible to identify as the source of an intelligent species.

If you were wondering, today, humanity ranks at about level 0.75, since we have altered our planet (including: creating huge structures, mining and stripping mountains, removing rainforests, and draining swamps), created rivers and lakes, and changed the composition and temperature of the atmosphere (Kurzgesagt, 2020). If progress continues and we don’t destroy our planet, we should become a full Type 1 civilization in the next few hundred years (Kurzgesagt, 2020). Some scientists suggest there might be Type 4 and Type 5 civilizations, whose influence stretches over galaxy clusters (structures comprising thousands of galaxies and trillions of stars). Ultimately, there might be a Type Omega civilization, able to manipulate the entire universe (and others) and might be the actual creator(s) of our universe; for reasons beyond our comprehension (Kurgesagt, 2020). Maybe they were just bored?

As flawed as these classifications may be, if our ideas about the nature of civilizations are (sort

So, they are/were very likely not out there. In a sense, this is very saddening, but also very reassuring since their discovery (even on the lower levels of the Kardashev Scale) could be devastating for humanity. Why would the most exciting discovery of our life be bad? The answer is a filter, not one that keeps your inhome air system clean, keeps your mouth from creating an awkward situation, or the name of an American rock band from the 1990s, but instead a barrier or challenge that is so hard for life to overcome, (in theory) it eliminates species from reaching a certain level of the Kardashev Scale. There are two scenarios for this (hypothetical) filter: Either the filter is behind us; we are the first to pass it (whatever “it” is), or the filter is ahead of us. If the filter is behind us, that means that one of the steps we passed is almost impossible to take (Kurzgesagt, 2018). Some scientists theorize that it might be the emergence of life itself (though there is no consensus for the difficulty of emergence) (Kurzgesagt, 92

2018). The step of complex animal cells (as far as we know) only happened once (through evolutionary terms), so maybe there are billions of bacteria-covered planets in the Milky Way, but not a single one (apart from us) has achieved our level of complexity or intelligence (Kurzgesagt, 2018). If a Great Filter lies before tating and powerful, that it has destroyed most (if not all) advanced civilizations in our galaxy over billions of years: It needs to be so obvious and dangerous, that its discovery leads almost universally to an existential disaster: a large scale nuclear war, nanotechnology that gets out of control, genetic engineering of the perfect

SMACS 0723main_image_deep_field_smacs0723-5mb.jpg us, it has to be so dangerous, so purely devas-

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI superbug, or an experiment that lights the whole atmosphere on fire; it might even be a super-intelligent AI that accidentally (or purposefully) destroys its creators, or things that we cannot even see coming right now (like a black hole or a gamma-ray burst), or it is way simpler: species competitive enough to take over their planet necessarily destroy it while competing with each other for resources, maybe there are runaway chain reactions in every ecosystem that once set in motion, is not fixable, and so once a civilization is powerful enough to change the composition of its atmosphere, they make their planet uninhabitable 100% of the time; let us hope that is not the case (for our sake) (Kurzgesagt, 2018).

There is no way for us to know, but maybe (all in all) we are alone (Kurzgesagt, 2015). We currently have no evidence for any other life besides us. The universe appears empty and dead. Maybe we are completely alone, trapped on a tiny moist mud ball, in an eternal universe (Kurzgesagt, 2015). If we are the only life left in this vast universe and let life on this planet die, perhaps there will be no life left in the universe (or any chance for life to exist). If this thought scares you, you are having the proper emotional reaction (Kurzgesagt, 2015). As Kurzgesagt says (a German animation and design studio founded by Philipp Dettmer), “we have to venture to the stars and keep the delicate flame of life existing, spreading until the universe breathes its final breath and vanishes into oblivion. The universe is too beautiful not to be experienced by somebody.” Maybe that somebody will be you? This reality is too beautiful and elaborate not to be experienced by somebody. If we are the only possibility of life in the universe, how will you decide to live it? Will you go get your dream job (maybe a medical worker, game programmer, social worker, engineer, entrepreneur, etcetera); discover new physics, explore the far reaches of space, create innovations in new technology (hopefully not humanity ending AI), or create solutions for world problems? What steps will you take now to accomplish this way of life?