The search for intelligent extraterrestrial life on other planets is a long-standing question. Decades after the beginning of this search, several theories have been proposed that try to explain the reasons for our failure in this case. One of the most famous theories is called the Fermi paradox. Named after the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi, it asks why humanity has not yet met alien life, if all the premises indicate that there must be other civilizations in our universe capable of interstellar travel.
Many have tried to answer this question. For some, we're just looking in the wrong place. Others believe the aliens are hibernating. According to the third, we are the only technologically advanced civilization in the universe.
Alan Stern, planetary scientist and scientific director of NASA's New Horizons space mission, has a different theory. And he shared about it at the recently held 49th annual meeting of planetary scientists of the American Astronomical Society.
According to Space.com, Stern came up with the idea that extraterrestrial intelligent life could indeed exist in other parts of our galaxy, but it lives, most likely, in the dark ocean depths below the surface of the planets. Such oceans should definitely exist in our galaxy, if only because they exist in our own solar system - Pluto, Jupiter's moons, Saturn's moon Titan, to name just a few. Subsurface oceans, according to Stern, could give life more time to develop, protecting it from external threats that usually affect any other bare planetary surface.
"Solar flares, supernova explosions, the peculiarity of the orbits, the presence or absence of a magnetosphere and atmosphere - all these factors in this case become insignificant," Stern explained to Space.com.
Continuing to delve deeper into his theory, Stern also suggested that alien civilizations, all of their time living under the surface, may not even suspect the existence of another, above-surface world. And if this is actually the case, then these civilizations definitely know much less than we do about the surrounding galaxy. Unfortunately, even if these civilizations wanted to establish contact with someone (in this case with us), then we most likely would not be able to detect signs of these attempts. Very low frequency radio waves could certainly help somehow, but even with them, the chance of detection would be extremely low.
Constant life in the ocean cannot but leave its mark. With the discovery of the possibility and desire to travel between the stars, such civilizations would have to look for a solution to a serious problem associated with life support systems, since the latter, of course, would work primarily on water. On an incredibly large volume of water. Water is known to be a very heavy substance. Therefore, even in the case of entering the orbit of their home planet, such civilizations would have to use significantly more significant amounts of fuel needed to accelerate the spacecraft.
Nevertheless, Stern's theory is just a theory. The astronomer never saw it as an ultimate answer to the Fermi paradox.
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“Perhaps this riddle has no answer. My theory only adds a new element to the discussion of this issue,”says the scientist.
Humanity will no doubt continue to search for intelligent extraterrestrial life, and its discovery will certainly be the largest in our human history. We cannot accurately predict when this will happen, but at least we will have a plan for further actions when that time comes.
Nikolay Khizhnyak