The Milky Way, like our entire Universe, is fraught with a lot of mysteries. For decades, many researchers have been trying to find at least indirect evidence of life in space, but this has not been possible. Scientists from the University of Birmingham have come to the conclusion that there is a star Kepler-444 in our galaxy, which has an age identical to the Milky Way. According to experts, it was there that the first life could have arisen, the echoes of which reached the Earth.
Kepler 444 is roughly 13 billion years old. About the same amount of time ago, the Milky Way was born. According to experts, the star originally had an expanded system in which the planets were at a great distance from each other. Due to the fact that the Milky Way is constantly moving around the center, the celestial bodies began to gradually converge. As a result, all the planets were in maximum proximity to their star, which led to the destruction of the first life in the Universe. According to the researchers, this version of the development of events is the most plausible, since it was the first star that had every chance of having organic matter in its system. The very concept of life in space is also controversial. There is an opinion that the human body, like other species on our planet, can differ from aliens so much,that they simply remain invisible due to a number of features. According to scientists, there may be higher races of beings in the Universe that do not have a physical body or visual image. While such a theory may seem incomprehensible to humans, it also has a right to exist. In order to understand the possibility of the existence of more ancient life in the Milky Way, it is worth talking about its structure and the process of formation.
The very birth of the Milky Way is still a mystery, but there are many theories on this score. Based on our understanding of the habitable zones of a galaxy, it can be assumed that the total potential habitability of any galaxy depends on three main astrophysical criteria. Chief among them is the number of systems that have planets next to the stars. According to the researchers, there are clusters with one or more celestial bodies in which theoretically there can be no life. Another criterion is the negative impact of supernova explosions, whose powerful radiation will simply destroy all life at the stage of origin. According to experts, the second factor takes place only when it comes to life similar to earthly. In addition, iron, oxygen and carbon play an important role in this case. These elements should be considered key for a person.
It is noteworthy that more than 150 thousand galaxies in the Universe meet the above criteria. The researchers note that life, in fact, can be in every second cluster of stars, but it is not possible to learn about it. Scientists have established that giant elliptical galaxies, which are more rounded than our own Milky Way with spiral arms, may be more favorable for life. They can contain either planets inhabited by intelligent beings, or exoplanets suitable for life.
By all accounts, our Milky Way is a typical medium-sized spiral galaxy that makes about one star like our Sun every year. Given this factor, it can be assumed that humanity, like all life on Earth, originated by chance, and not due to some pattern. At the same time, the theory completely contradicts the fact that life in our galaxy was still 14 billion years old. According to experts, in general, both options have a right to exist, but the second still seems closer to reality. The star Kepler-444 even now has a system full of radioactive clouds and planets lying next to each other, which indicates that the possible life that existed on it billions of years ago has long disappeared.
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Duncan Forgan from the University of Edinburgh has developed a new way to calculate the number of extraterrestrial intelligent and technically advanced civilizations. According to him, life in the Universe exists only in the remote corners of star clusters, since they are least susceptible to all kinds of processes, including the formation of supernovae. Experts say that planets with water on their surface may be located near giant stars. Unfortunately, cold dwarfs are not good for this. According to the researchers, it is the systems of yellow dwarfs, to which the Sun belongs, that can have life. There are currently 58 billion red dwarfs in the Milky Way galaxy. They can also theoretically be suitable for the development of life, but in this case the distance to the star is important. If the planet is near the sun,the air temperature on it will not correspond to the norms of vital activity, which will prevent even the simplest single-celled organisms from developing.
Thus, according to scientists, living organisms could appear only on planets located near yellow dwarfs between the arms of the Milky Way. The theory itself that the first life was still about 14 billion years ago has a right to exist, but it is considered controversial.
Author: Makhov Artem