Many space researchers believe that it would be strange if the Earth were the only habitable planet. In the near future, they believe, with the help of the James Web Telescope, it will be possible to see exoplanets near stars like our Sun.
Already, astronomers observe many terrestrial exoplanets next to red dwarfs and even in the habitable zone of these stars. Very soon it will be possible to study their atmospheres. The only problem is that red dwarfs are very faint, which puts their planets in very close orbits. But because of the orbital period of only a few Earth days, they are so easy to detect.
However, too high activity of their stars stands in the way of the origin of life on exoplanets. On the other hand, many of these stars have planets in their habitable zone, which makes it possible to develop long-term programs for their study to develop technologies that will be needed in the future to study planets around stars such as our Sun. Thus, in ten years, researchers will have candidates for planets with intelligent life.
And at this moment, Enrico Fermi again comes to the fore with his paradoxical question: "Where are they all?"
But the so-called Fermi paradox is reduced to the question "Where is everyone?" If there should be alien civilizations, and there can be so many of them, then why does humanity not observe any traces of them? Indeed, according to the formula developed to calculate the number of civilizations in the Galaxy, with which contact is possible, by the American astronomer Frank Drake, the chances of detecting alien intelligence are very high. But there are no traces!
According to scientists, if an earth-like planet in the habitable zone of its star will exist, say, 5 billion years without serious influences, both from the star and from space, then life on it will definitely arise. And with the development of technological progress, see a civilization similar to ours should not be difficult. It seems to be.
In the 50s-60s of the last century, it seemed that this very technical progress was developing very rapidly, and now a little more, and we will become full-fledged fairly developed inhabitants of one of the distant, distant galaxies. But where are all our colleagues in the galactic senate?
As a result of very massive and targeted searches carried out in the 60s-70s. scientists came to the conclusion that, at least, technically advanced civilizations like ours, this phenomenon is very rare. This may mean that there are simply few of them within the same galaxy. And all of them have been around for too long.
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Meanwhile, mathematician Daniet Whitmir offered his own explanation for the Fermi paradox, calling it the "principle of mediocrity." Whitmere suggested that the "unique" traits of humanity are the "mediocre" norm in the absence of other examples of the existence of intelligent life that arose in fundamentally different conditions.
Within the framework of the explanation proposed by the mathematician, the absence of other intelligent beings in the Universe is explained by two different, but equal hypotheses - the fact that humanity is the first intelligent race of the universe, or the fact that technologically advanced civilizations live extremely shortly. Although they may become noticeable at some point, this happens for a very short time - about 50 years. And such a moment is very difficult to catch. And you can notice a neighbor from the nearest stars only if he, the neighbor, actively communicates into outer space, and intentionally, in order to establish contact.
So, if we proceed from Drake's formula, then we should have many brothers in mind in space. We know for sure that there are many terrestrial planets. In the next few years, we will learn to analyze the composition of their atmospheres, and we can assume that soon there will be enough "sisters" of the Earth.
And here astrophysicists have several assumptions:
1. The problem of lack of communication with alien civilizations rests against something biological - perhaps something that affects the emergence or any stages of life development happens very rarely. So, no one doubts that it is with the advent of replicators (RNA) capable of self-reproduction that the “Darwinian” evolutionary mechanism begins to work, as described at the beginning of the article, but the conditions and principle of their appearance are not clear today.
2. Or the problem will be exclusively anthropological - life in the form of bacteria and even animals appears relatively often, but animals that build radio telescopes, for some reason, appear very, very rarely.
One way or another, the fact remains - we do not hear anyone, despite targeted large-scale searches. Perhaps it is precisely in us and in our weak technical development, although we think of ourselves completely differently. But the search continues. So, in the program of any radio telescope there is an item related to the search for alien signals, because everyone understands the importance of such a search. So, most likely, despite the various private initiatives of enthusiasts, a signal from another civilization will be found within the framework of an ordinary astronomical search.
