6 ms·

Maybe this is the solution to the Fermi paradox: Advanced civilizations tend to create runaway space debris collisions, preventing them from leaving their home

Maybe this is the solution to the Fermi paradox: Advanced civilizations tend to create runaway space debris collisions, preventing them from leaving their home planets.

hosteur 5y ago
This is known as the Kessler syndrome. And it is not a good solution to the Fermi paradox by itself. Because it would only require a very small fraction of civilizations to avoid it to spread.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- FeepingCreature 5y ago
  Also, Kessler syndrome doesn't keep you from leaving the planet, just from having satellites. When passing through a debris shell, as opposed to staying in it for years, the collision risk is very small.
  - labster 5y ago
    How deep are those debris shells anyway? If we had a collision cascade in LEO, would geosynchronous orbits be generally safe? They’re pretty far apart, but I don’t know for sure.
    - didgeoridoo 5y ago
      I have no intuition for this, as it is not modeled in KSP :) I’m trying to imagine a collision cascade that would generate debris with a significantly higher apoapsis than the original satellites… perhaps a head-on collision between prograde and retrograde orbits that ends up “squirting” some debris at extreme velocity in the normal/antinormal direction? Alternately, an object on a highly elliptical orbit (probably already space junk) near its periapsis with max kinetic energy hitting a satellite prograde?
- worldsayshi 5y ago
  Fermi tangent: I wonder if the Fermi paradox is a bit of a fallacy of reverse casualty in a similar vain to asking - how come we end up in the Goldilocks zone around a star? Because sentient life is not likely to appear in other conditions. Why are there no aliens making contact? Because if there were such aliens it would be a high probability that they wouldn't want to leave earth alone and then humanity wouldn't have a chance to evolve here. In other words, any surrounding aliens or non-aliens that have left earth alone for enough time for humans to have evolved are unlikely to suddenly want to make contact at any certain point of our development.
  - bluGill 5y ago
    The speed of light alone is enough to explain it. Aliens cannot get here, and so they don't know we exist. Even if you believe there is life elsewhere, odds are it is far enough away that they cannot detect us (not to mention radio hasn't make it 150 light year yet - which is a much smaller amount of stars).
    - BurningFrog 5y ago
      The universe is 14 billions years old. That plenty of time for a civilization to spread around all the galaxy, at least.
      - hunterb123 5y ago
        To be fair only some of that time is usable as you have to wait for the many conditions of life to happen. That's a lot of coincidences to wait for, then the long evolution process...
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
thanatos519 5y ago
I doubt the Great Filter manifests the same way in every case. We are going to be stuck here for a long time because of climate change, but the quantity of stored carbon from early plants here is probably not common. Other earthlike civilizations might have to switch to solar/wind/wave electrical generation sooner, or they could just listen to their scientists and drown their plutocrats. We could also nuke ourselves. Kessler syndrome is hardly our biggest problem. Life always finds a way ... to take itself out.
- heavenlyblue 5y ago
  > from early plants here is probably not common Why not? Seems like this is exactly what would regularly happen to plant-like life.
- orwin 5y ago
  > might have to switch to solar/wind/wave You mean our main power generation tools until the 1900s?
  - Filligree 5y ago
    And it wasn't enough power. Economic development is largely built on increasing accessible power. We have alternatives to coal and oil now, but back in the 1900s we didn't. Those are both made from dead trees, which for millions of years simply didn't rot; this simultaneously cooled the planet down, dramatically weakening hurricane patterns for all time until... now, while also storing millions of years' worth of solar power for our use. A lot of otherwise habitable planets very likely didn't go through that phase.
  - guerrilla 5y ago
    No, solar wasn't one and the other's have radically increased in efficiency and decreased in price.
mr_toad 5y ago
A sphere of debris would flatten out into a ring. The denser the debris, the quicker the ring would form. So all you’d have to do is avoid the ring.

Maybe this is the solution to the Fermi paradox: Advanced civilizations tend to create runaway space debris collisions, preventing them from leaving their home planets.

hosteur 5y ago

This is known as the Kessler syndrome. And it is not a good solution to the Fermi paradox by itself. Because it would only require a very small fraction of civilizations to avoid it to spread.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
FeepingCreature 5y ago
Also, Kessler syndrome doesn't keep you from leaving the planet, just from having satellites. When passing through a debris shell, as opposed to staying in it for years, the collision risk is very small.
- labster 5y ago
  How deep are those debris shells anyway? If we had a collision cascade in LEO, would geosynchronous orbits be generally safe? They’re pretty far apart, but I don’t know for sure.
  - didgeoridoo 5y ago
    I have no intuition for this, as it is not modeled in KSP :) I’m trying to imagine a collision cascade that would generate debris with a significantly higher apoapsis than the original satellites… perhaps a head-on collision between prograde and retrograde orbits that ends up “squirting” some debris at extreme velocity in the normal/antinormal direction? Alternately, an object on a highly elliptical orbit (probably already space junk) near its periapsis with max kinetic energy hitting a satellite prograde?
worldsayshi 5y ago
Fermi tangent: I wonder if the Fermi paradox is a bit of a fallacy of reverse casualty in a similar vain to asking - how come we end up in the Goldilocks zone around a star? Because sentient life is not likely to appear in other conditions. Why are there no aliens making contact? Because if there were such aliens it would be a high probability that they wouldn't want to leave earth alone and then humanity wouldn't have a chance to evolve here. In other words, any surrounding aliens or non-aliens that have left earth alone for enough time for humans to have evolved are unlikely to suddenly want to make contact at any certain point of our development.
- bluGill 5y ago
  The speed of light alone is enough to explain it. Aliens cannot get here, and so they don't know we exist. Even if you believe there is life elsewhere, odds are it is far enough away that they cannot detect us (not to mention radio hasn't make it 150 light year yet - which is a much smaller amount of stars).
  - BurningFrog 5y ago
    The universe is 14 billions years old. That plenty of time for a civilization to spread around all the galaxy, at least.
    - hunterb123 5y ago
      To be fair only some of that time is usable as you have to wait for the many conditions of life to happen. That's a lot of coincidences to wait for, then the long evolution process...
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]

thanatos519 5y ago

I doubt the Great Filter manifests the same way in every case. We are going to be stuck here for a long time because of climate change, but the quantity of stored carbon from early plants here is probably not common. Other earthlike civilizations might have to switch to solar/wind/wave electrical generation sooner, or they could just listen to their scientists and drown their plutocrats. We could also nuke ourselves. Kessler syndrome is hardly our biggest problem. Life always finds a way ... to take itself out.

heavenlyblue 5y ago
> from early plants here is probably not common Why not? Seems like this is exactly what would regularly happen to plant-like life.
orwin 5y ago
> might have to switch to solar/wind/wave You mean our main power generation tools until the 1900s?
- Filligree 5y ago
  And it wasn't enough power. Economic development is largely built on increasing accessible power. We have alternatives to coal and oil now, but back in the 1900s we didn't. Those are both made from dead trees, which for millions of years simply didn't rot; this simultaneously cooled the planet down, dramatically weakening hurricane patterns for all time until... now, while also storing millions of years' worth of solar power for our use. A lot of otherwise habitable planets very likely didn't go through that phase.
- guerrilla 5y ago
  No, solar wasn't one and the other's have radically increased in efficiency and decreased in price.

mr_toad 5y ago

A sphere of debris would flatten out into a ring. The denser the debris, the quicker the ring would form. So all you’d have to do is avoid the ring.