Aliens Might Be Gradually Exploring the Milky Way, Stealthily Avoiding Us for Millions of Years

The study proposes that alien civilizations might exploit the natural motion of stars, waiting for opportune moments when nearby stars align closely enough for manageable travel.

A recent study suggests that our galaxy might be teeming with alien beings who are yet to get in touch with us because they are still lazy, and will leverage on stellar motion to travel between stars. Rather than immediately move towards colonizers, these space aliens might be content to let stars move closer before moving on. The research provided in this work refutes the current idea that we are unique in the entire galaxy and provides a new look at the Fermi Paradox in terms of strategic time and space of alien civilizations.

This work also pointed out that there might be infinite numbers of alien civilizations in the Milky Way yet the fact is that they never came to Earth in the last 10 million years at least. ”

Based in The Astronomical Journal, the study indicates that advanced form of alien life could be venturing into the galaxy slowly, by using the motions of stars to make the space travel possible.

This paper responds to the Fermi Paradox that looks for the reasons why we have not received signals from other civilizations.

One of the world’s leading physicists, Enrico Fermi was the first to pose the paradox, and he phrased it quite simply: Where is everybody?

Originally, Fermi’s question was posed in the context of difficulties of traveling through space between stars and finally it turned into a global question of possibility of existence of animate beings on other planets.

Microwave ovens were first commonly used in the 1970s and it was in a 1975 paper that this matter was first computationally explored systematically by astrophysicist Michael Hart on the matter that based on the life expectancy of hospitales [= hospitals], with consideration of probable future technological advancements, on the average, people should live for fifty to hundred years; therefore, using complicated mathematical formulas known as exponential growth and decay formulas For the last six billion years since the formation of the Milky Way galaxy, intelligent civilization would have had plenty of time to populate the galaxy, but none of them have been found to send signals.

To the dismay of fans of ‘series-space‘, Hart came to the conclusion that there can not be a second civilization with superior technology in the Galaxy.

The study offers a different perspective: very well, maybe extraterrestrials of a planned species are just slow and smart on their actions.

“If you don’t take into consideration movement of stars in an attempt to solve this problem, then you are effectively left with one of two options,” said Carroll-Nellenback Jonathan, a computational scientist and the author of the study in a conversation with business insider.

“It is either everybody stays on their planet, or indeed we are the only space-faring civilization in the galaxy. ”

Stars with their planets move in different orbits or rather in different trajectories and with different velocities around the central point of the galaxy. He also added that as they orbit, they sometimes come close to each other meaning that relations between them are not completely non-existent. Thus, aliens might be waiting for their next destination to come closer, according to his study.

Civilisations would expand to the stars more slowly than Hart postulated, which might still fail to reach us today — or perhaps they already did, before apes stood up to walk on two legs.

A new idea about interstellar travel

There are numerous theories that were offered to explain the Fermi Paradox and among them such theories stating that extraterrestrial life could possibly be living in subsurface oceans or that civilizations successfully destroy themselves before they are able to develop space travel.

Another fascinating theory that has been developed is the so-called ‘zoo hypothesis’, that advanced space civilizations purposefully refrain from approaching us, as we refrain from approaching some species of animals, or some indigenous tribes in their interaction with civilization.

According to a survey carried out at Oxford University, it was forecasted that there is approximately 40 percent possibility that we are alone in Milky Way and roughly 33 percent possibility that in the whole universe as well.

However, the authors of the latest study emphasize that previous research has often overlooked a critical factor: rotation of our galaxy. Similar to planets which go round stars, star systems go round the center of the galaxy. For instance our Solar System orbits the Milky Way cycle every 230 million years.

Based on this work, it is postulated that if a civilization evolves in star systems that are initially distributed (as is our sun, which is situated on the periphery of the galaxy) they can reduce distances traveled by merely waiting for their orbit to bring them into proximity with another star harboring life.

Once settled in a new system these civilizations could wait again for a travel distance before moving a flight again.

In this case, aliens are not careening through the galaxy: they are waiting for their stars to follow another star with a possibly inhabited planet.

“If ‘long enough’ denotes a billion years then that would explain the Fermi Paradox in a way,” said Carroll-Nellenback. ‘There are not many habitable worlds out there; you have to wait about as long as between the time between one civilization passing and next one coming into range of the others,’ he quoted someone.

The Milky Way could be full of settled star systems

To develop scenarios of the extraterrestrial civilizations’ existence, the researchers decided to employ numerical models of civilization spread across the galaxy.

Some of the aspects that were considered by the authors are hypothetical civilization’s distance from new star systems, the range of interstellar probes and how fast they can travel, and how often such probes are sent.

More importantly, the research team did not fall into the temptation of trying to explain why aliens were not communicating or attempting to contact earth by hypothesizing on aliens’ motives or politics, which is something that various astrophysicists have noted that many Fermi Paradox solutions do.

“Basically, we wanted to create a theory that makes minimal assumptions about sociology,” Carroll-Nellenback added.

However, one of the challenges in modeling the galactic expansion of alien civilizations is that we only have one reference point: humanity or the society we reside in as a whole. For this reason, our expectations are derived from self-generated outcomes, or behaviors only.

In spite of this drawback, the researchers chose to come up with the conclusion that indeed, the Milky Way could be filled with settled star systems, which are unknown to humanity. This conclusion remained valid irrespective of the use of conservative probability numbers for the speed and frequency of interstellar aliens’ travel.

“Each star, each system may be able to support life and be inhabited and colonised but they might not bother coming here because it is simply too far away” said Carroll-Nellenback and added that this indeed does not mean it is probable.

So far, scientists have identified about 4,000 exoplanets, but none of them was ‘’found to have any sort of life. ’’ However, our search has been limited: the Milky Way galaxy holds in itself, at least one hundred billion stars together they have even more planets.

Although, one research indicated that billions of them could be similar to the Earth, where the figure could go up to 10 billion.

As such, the study’s authors may say that the absence of life on these planets would be similar to the scenario where a handful of water the size of a pool is analyzed and in it there is no sign of dolphins meaning that the entire ocean lacks dolphins.

Aliens may have visited Earth in the past

Another important point in discussions about alien life is what Hart referred to as “Fact A”: As we recently explained, there are no extraterrestrial beings presently living on planet Earth, nor is there any signs of past inhabitants.

However, the authors of new study pointed out to this fact doesn’t exclude previous alien visits.

If an extraterrestrial civilization visiterd the earth millions of years ago since earth is estimated to be 4. They quoted other experts who stated that there could be possibilities that we can not find any traces of such extraterrestrial visits.

It also can be mentioned that aliens are capable of coming close to the Earth during the time when humanity has existed but they did not come. The study calls this effect the ‘Aurora effect’ and this term was coined from the novel Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Further, the authors also mentioned that aliens could possibly stay away from planets which already exist with forms of life. If one assumed they would want to visit it could be a ‘naive projection’ of facets of human psychology that equate ‘growth’ with ‘conquest. ’

Taking such factors into consideration the study presumed that alien civilizations would only colonize a small percentage of the potentially habitable planets they come across. However, the researchers found out that if there are enough number of planets capable to support life, aliens should have covered the galaxy by now.

There’s still much more to learn

At the moment the researchers recommend not to feel discouraged by the lack of response from the universe.

‘We are not saying we are lonely’, added Carroll-Nellenback.

That’s just means that planets capable of sustaining life, as well as are definitely not common and are not for the reach.

In the next few years, there will be the ability to detect and analyse planets that could support life, due to the construction of new telescopes and other space apparatuses.

Kepler telescope was able to advance the detection of planets in our galaxy capable of sustaining life. The current search is continuing by Hubble Space Telescope and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) both of which are orbiting the Earth.

Several pieces of significant information could be devised that would considerably enhance our knowledge about whether or not we are alone in the universe including the speed and distance over which an interstellar probe can go and the lifetime of the opponent civilization.

“We are really desperate for some data points,” Carroll-Nellenback added.

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