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Sixty Billion Stars. and No Aliens? What Now?
- PaulHoule 5y ago(1) You need a much better telescope to see evidence of alien life. Something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOCAL_(spacecraft) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOCAL_(spacecraft) could plausibly pick up accidental EM emissions from civilizations on Earth. (2) Most of the habitable places in the universe with liquid water by far are smaller bodies that are heated by tidal or geothermal energy. The average "gas giant" seems to have tide locked moons producing situations like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Io_(moon) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Io_(moon) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(moon) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(moon) geothermal heat and pressure probably cause liquid water in Pluto. In fact, an asteroid in a circular orbit around Earth will have an equilibrium temperature not far from the freezing point. We know some asteroids have a skin of some kind that traps gas, plus probably also mechanisms that keep votatiles stuck the way gas gets trapped inside bread. I am certain that some asteroids somewhere in the universe hold enough pressure to have liquid water. If humans are going to become starfaring they will go through the following steps: https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.07487 https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.07487 and possibly the development of Deuterium + Deuterium fusion which would mean having that lifestyle on interstellar ice chunks. Aliens like that might lose interest entirely in dried out inner solar system bodies like the Earth. (e.g. in "Battle Los Angeles" the TV commentator says they came for our water -- perhaps he's one of those talking heads who is always wrong.)