A new study published in The Astrophysical Journal has suggested that several dozen intelligent alien life forms could be living in our galaxy right now.
According to the University of Nottingham researchers who utilized a new approach to come up with the potential number of other intelligent alien races in the Milky Way, over thirty advanced life forms could be living thousands of light-years away from us.
Based on the new model, called the Astrobiological Copernican Limit, the scientists have assumed that intelligent life forms take some five billion years to develop provided they are placed in an optimal environment on a planet with the right distance from the star – the source of heat – that it orbits, the scientists have estimated that at least 36 other intelligent alien races are present in our galaxy.
“Our new study simplifies these assumptions using new data, giving us a solid estimate of the number of civilizations in our galaxy,” Dr. Tom Westby, the first author of the study, explained.
According to the research, the number of advanced alien forms we might detect could depend on how long they have been sending signals into space.
Sadly, however, the detection with the current technology is not promising due to the estimate that the potential alien races are on average some 17,000 light-years away from us.
In addition, the study suggests it is possible that intelligent life could currently exist solely on Earth provided that other intelligent life forms across the galaxy were short-lived or have died out long ago.
“Our new research suggests that searches for extraterrestrial intelligent civilizations not only reveals the existence of how life forms, but also gives us clues for how long our civilization will last,” Christopher Conselice, Professor of Astrophysics and the Lead of the study, said.
“If we find that intelligent life is common then this would reveal that our civilization could exist for much longer than a few hundred years.
“Alternatively, if we find that there are no active civilizations in our galaxy it is a bad sign for our own long-term existence.”
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