Parallel universes will be suitable for the formation of new stars and the birth of life even if they contain a different amount of dark energy than our universe, scientists say in an article published in the journal MNRAS.
“Our calculations show that even if parallel worlds contain too much or little dark energy, these changes will have a minimal effect on their ability to form new stars and planets. This, in turn, suggests that intelligent life should exist in parallel universes,”said Jaime Salcido from the University of Durham (UK).
More than half a century ago, American astronomer Frank Drake developed a formula for calculating the number of civilizations in the Galaxy with which contact is possible, trying to estimate the chances of discovering extraterrestrial intelligence and life.
Physicist Enrico Fermi, in response to a rather high assessment of the chances of interplanetary contact using Drake's formula, formulated the thesis, which is now known as the Fermi paradox: if there are so many alien civilizations, then why does humanity not observe any traces of them?
Scientists have tried to solve this paradox in many ways, the most popular of which is the "unique Earth" hypothesis. She says that for the emergence of intelligent beings, unique conditions are necessary, in fact, a complete copy of our planet.
Other astronomers believe that we cannot contact aliens because galactic civilizations either disappear too quickly for us to notice them, or because they are actively hiding the fact of their existence from humanity.
Salsido and his colleagues posed a "broader" question - if alien life does not exist in our universe, can it exist outside of it?
The fact is that many astronomers and cosmologists today believe that our Universe has a number of unique characteristics, including the ratio of the proportion of visible, dark matter and energy, thanks to which stars, planets and suitable conditions for the origin of life can exist in it.
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The slightest deviations in the values of these and some other physical constants, as supporters of this idea, called the "anthropic principle," believe, will make a hypothetical parallel Universe lifeless or shorten its lifespan so much that "brothers in mind" will simply not have time to appear in it.
British astrophysicists checked whether this is so by creating computer models of other worlds, where dark energy had slightly different properties and otherwise influenced the process of expanding the boundaries of the universe.
On the one hand, these calculations really showed that our Universe contains anomalously little dark energy, which is often said by the supporters of the anthropic principle. On the other hand, an increase in its number by several hundred times did not in any way affect the process of star formation, the density of galaxies, and other important features of parallel worlds associated with their habitability.
This, in turn, casts doubt on both the anthropic principle and the theory of the multiverse, which explains the unique amount of dark energy in our universe.
“We asked ourselves - how much dark energy is needed to completely 'kill' life? It turned out that the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe had practically no effect on the rate of star birth and the appearance of suitable sites for the origin of life. Even when we increased its amount hundreds of times, the universe did not become dead,”concludes Pascal Elahi, another article author from the University of Western Australia at Crowley.