https://www.newsweek.com/scientists-send-transmit-earth-location-aliens-stephen-hawking-warning-arecibo-1694139

  • hexaflexagonbear [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I think the thing scientists are puzzled by is the complete lack of evidence of advanced civilizations anywhere. The universe is very old, and very vast. Even conservative estimates assumed we'd be able to find some evidence of radio signals.

    • catposter [comrade/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      radio signals would take millions of years to get any significant distance and for all we know we just evolved in a span of time right after one passed through our solar system. even a 0.1 degree difference in the direction of travel could make a radio signal entirely miss our solar system too. that combined with the low revolution rate of multicellular creatures means that it's probably just that no one knows where to find others and there's very few people to look

    • TerminalEncounter [she/her]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      The galaxy is huge but even if a civilization could "only" travel at 50% the speed of light ever (and also if a desire to expand is a reasonable thing these civilizations would have) the galaxy would've been colonized within 100K years or so. So if any time between anatomical humans and now there were spacefaring civilizations in the galaxy, we should see evidence for it pretty much anywhere we point our telescopes.