< The shared treasure >
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| So now: what can we say about extra-terrestrial civilisations? Would any deep thoughts on this topic be a waste of time?
Since Democritus of Abdera (5th century BC) and Giordano Bruno (16th
century AD) an ever increasing material has accumulated on this subject. Apparently,
humans do not regard it a waste of time. Only in retrospect
speculations about intelligent life on the Moon, on Mars, Venus or even
on Sun(!) were useless. |
| In
the year 2026, after decades of professional screening of nearer and
farer star systems, still no alarm bell rang. At the same time,
technical improvement allowed
the identification of several planets offering physical environments
permissive of life forms as we know them, at distances from the very
close Proxima Centauri b (4.2 light years) up to several 100 light-years away. |
| Decades of painstaking research have not evinced any reproducible electro-magnetic signals
from closer or farer candidates. Even without intentional emission of
signals towards us, we should have detected electro smog as indication
of cultures evolved to a comparable degree as ours. It is an open
question, however, whether such noise should really always be the
unavoidable by-product of highly developed societies. |
| Further technical progress may allow in 50 or 100 years to send mini-satellites to targets up to 10 light-years away.
If we don't find extra-terrestrial life in our solar system (on Mars or
on the Jupiter-moon Europa), we might find them with such a campaign. I
have my doubts, however, that any technically evolved civilisation
will be among them. An Mars or Europa we will find microbes and maybe even some kind of lichen. |
| On a planet in a near-by star system we may discover multicellular life. In
reach to direct exploration will probably be a few dozen systems. In
relation to the estimated 100 billion star systems in the milky way
this is nothing (9 zeros behind the comma). This sobering fact reduces
very optimistic speculations to optimistic ones: there seem to be not
100 million technically advanced civilisations, but only less than 10
million in our galaxy. |
| As
it looks at the present state of affaires, the closest technically
evolved society will be at least several hundred light-years away. Any
transport in this or the other direction would take at least centuries
if not millenia. The good news is: We are sure of them, and they are
sure of us. And the bad news? There is none. We still will influence
each other by contributing, together with billions of other
civilisations, to the common pool of 'higher feelings'. |
| Our
only task for the millenia to come will be to live in peace with
ourselves and the other creatures on our planet. Maybe listening with
more diligence to our 'inner voice' would be helpful in achieving this
goal. |
| 7/26 < MLB (7/26) > 8/26 Cosmic Feelings? |