The scientific community believes that the aliens exist even though we don’t have proof. The reason is that in our Milky Way alone there are 100 to 400 billion stars with at least as many planets. There have to be a lot of planets with extraterrestrials. Is this theory justified? Will we ever be able to contact the aliens? Let’s see why not.
To date, we have found over 2000 exoplanets. There must be billions of them in our Milky Way. So where do we find the aliens? The drake equation is designed to calculate the possibility of life beyond earth.
The Drake Equation Helps – Meeting With The Aliens
For calculating with the Drake equation, we need to know how many exoplanets there are in our Milky Way that have the same living conditions (earth-like, habitable zone, no bound rotation) as our Earth. There are about 100,000 planets in our Milky Way galaxy on which higher life could arise.
The crucial question, however, is not how many could arise in principle, but with what probability higher life has arisen there and how many planets with such aliens exist in our Milky Way today.
Where Are The Problems?
The good thing about formulas like the Drake equation is that you can see immediately where the problem exists. We still have two problems. First, we don’t exactly know what factors are involved in ascertaining the evolution of life.
Our existence only says it can happen, but not with what probability. Second, we have no idea how long an average civilization exists. It might be possible that the higher civilizations existed but became a victim of time.
It is a question for evolutionary biologists with what probability a single-celled organism can form and eventually intelligent life can emerge from it, which can also engage in interstellar communication because that is how intelligence is defined.
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Seen in this way, we have only been intelligent since November 16, 1974, when human beings sent the so-called Arecibo message to extraterrestrials in the direction of the large globular cluster Hercules, Messier 13, with the world’s largest radio telescope, the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico. But whether that was really intelligent is a completely different question.
Critical Development Steps
The first step in the formation of the first cell from inorganic matter is extremely complex. There has to be a cell envelope in which certain complex proteins called ribosomes, happen to be at work. They are guided by an extremely complex genome called mRNA about how they produce other cell proteins, break down, and transform.
The big question is that how can this orchestrated, extremely complex interplay arise out of nothing? The evolutionary biologists have not yet understood this so-called first critical evolutionary step and only say that it is extremely rare.
This has to happen just for the simple single cellular life to form. Upgrading life to a level of sophistication that it is able to form civilization and indulge in activities like scientific research, trade, politics, art, space exploration, and also be able to ask the most important question of all ‘Are we Alone?’. These extremely difficult sets of conditions make it further difficult for life to develop and thrive.
Then again, there must be conditions upon the planet that support life, like the right temperature, water, oxygen, availability of food, and atmosphere before the formation of life. So far, there is no proof that any life exists outside planet earth.
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The probability calculators tell us that there is an ample chance that the processes that made life appear on earth can happen in many places. However, we haven’t found anyone yet. Upon that, nobody has contacted us yet, which means, if there is life apart from us, either they are not advanced or too advanced to ignore us entirely.