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So there could've been civilizations that are literally BILLIONS of years ahead of us? Imagine what these people know about the universe! This reminds me of th

So there could've been civilizations that are literally BILLIONS of years ahead of us? Imagine what these people know about the universe! This reminds me of the Star Wars lead-in: "A long long time ago in a galaxy far far away." It really could've happened you know!

foxyv 4y ago
What's even crazier is that those civilizations could have built and advanced for a 100 million years and we would never know about it because they are so far away. The light from Canis Major, our closest galactic neighbor, is older than our civilization (25,000 years). The average distance between galaxies is 1 million light years. For all we know, there have been billions of civilizations that have lasted longer than the lifetime of our solar system and we haven't even seen the light from them yet. The universe is huge!
yreg 4y ago
Earth came quite late to the party and it spawned life relatively soon after. That's why it's strange we haven't discovered any Dyson spheres/swarms (in any galaxy). Either life is indeed absurdly rare, or Dysons are impractical for some reason, or there is a way to mask heat.
- tuatoru 4y ago
  Earth life uses lots of different elements - at least two generations of supernovas required. Not really that late if you allow for that.
  - yreg 4y ago
    Didn't that happen within like the first 2B years? First Sol-like systems were I think at 5B years, which would still make Earth ~3B years late to the party.
scotty79 4y ago
I don't know. Life needed almost 5bn years to get to this point on Earth. Let's say we lucked out and it almost always takes 3 times as long. Then we look like early birds in the Universe. What's more, earlier solar systems had a bit boring chemistry. We need a lot of supernova made stuff to really function so this narrows the time window. You might think that near galactic core there's a lot of really cool stuff made but I think interstellar environment might be less stable because of that and maybe life doesn't even have a 5bn years of quiet time to develop there.
- UltraViolence 4y ago
  You don't know that. Life might be possible with simpler chemistry too. Chemistry was sufficient 100 million years ago for intelligent life to evolve, so some other solar system could've easily have had intelligent life for that long or even longer if they were lucky. Our lives have changed beyond recognition in the last 500 years. Imagine a civilization that's thousands, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years ahead of us.
  - scotty79 4y ago
    > Life might be possible with simpler chemistry too. Yeah, but we since we know of only one instance of life developing we don't really know what's actually possible and what only might be possible. > Chemistry was sufficient 100 million years ago for intelligent life to evolve, so some other solar system could've easily have had intelligent life for that long or even longer if they were lucky. What I'm saying is that time it took life to develop on our planet is so close to the age of the universe (not even one order of magnitude of difference) that it's entirely possible that we were the lucky ones and the next intelligent life (or even eukaryotic life) in the universe won't show up for another few billions of years. Although it will inevitably show up. > Our lives have changed beyond recognition in the last 500 years. Imagine a civilization that's thousands, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years ahead of us. However technological capabilities of life didn't change at all in last 4 bn years despite it being in control of the whole planet for that long. Technology seems to need a really long runway to fly off. Another thing is that once technology kicks in as you noticed it develops incredibly fast and it influences the environment at the same speed. And life doesn't really like fast changes to environment so the technology in hundred thousand years might make this world completely unlivable.
mixmastamyk 4y ago
The first ones are beyond the rim now.

foxyv 4y ago

What's even crazier is that those civilizations could have built and advanced for a 100 million years and we would never know about it because they are so far away. The light from Canis Major, our closest galactic neighbor, is older than our civilization (25,000 years). The average distance between galaxies is 1 million light years. For all we know, there have been billions of civilizations that have lasted longer than the lifetime of our solar system and we haven't even seen the light from them yet. The universe is huge!

yreg 4y ago

Earth came quite late to the party and it spawned life relatively soon after. That's why it's strange we haven't discovered any Dyson spheres/swarms (in any galaxy). Either life is indeed absurdly rare, or Dysons are impractical for some reason, or there is a way to mask heat.

tuatoru 4y ago
Earth life uses lots of different elements - at least two generations of supernovas required. Not really that late if you allow for that.
- yreg 4y ago
  Didn't that happen within like the first 2B years? First Sol-like systems were I think at 5B years, which would still make Earth ~3B years late to the party.

scotty79 4y ago

I don't know. Life needed almost 5bn years to get to this point on Earth. Let's say we lucked out and it almost always takes 3 times as long. Then we look like early birds in the Universe. What's more, earlier solar systems had a bit boring chemistry. We need a lot of supernova made stuff to really function so this narrows the time window. You might think that near galactic core there's a lot of really cool stuff made but I think interstellar environment might be less stable because of that and maybe life doesn't even have a 5bn years of quiet time to develop there.

UltraViolence 4y ago
You don't know that. Life might be possible with simpler chemistry too. Chemistry was sufficient 100 million years ago for intelligent life to evolve, so some other solar system could've easily have had intelligent life for that long or even longer if they were lucky. Our lives have changed beyond recognition in the last 500 years. Imagine a civilization that's thousands, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years ahead of us.
- scotty79 4y ago
  > Life might be possible with simpler chemistry too. Yeah, but we since we know of only one instance of life developing we don't really know what's actually possible and what only might be possible. > Chemistry was sufficient 100 million years ago for intelligent life to evolve, so some other solar system could've easily have had intelligent life for that long or even longer if they were lucky. What I'm saying is that time it took life to develop on our planet is so close to the age of the universe (not even one order of magnitude of difference) that it's entirely possible that we were the lucky ones and the next intelligent life (or even eukaryotic life) in the universe won't show up for another few billions of years. Although it will inevitably show up. > Our lives have changed beyond recognition in the last 500 years. Imagine a civilization that's thousands, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years ahead of us. However technological capabilities of life didn't change at all in last 4 bn years despite it being in control of the whole planet for that long. Technology seems to need a really long runway to fly off. Another thing is that once technology kicks in as you noticed it develops incredibly fast and it influences the environment at the same speed. And life doesn't really like fast changes to environment so the technology in hundred thousand years might make this world completely unlivable.

mixmastamyk 4y ago

The first ones are beyond the rim now.