Are there other civilisations in space or on other planets?

1 Answer
Feb 1, 2017

It is quite likely that there are other civilizations in space or on other planets.

Explanation:

With the help of satellites we are discovering an increasing number of planets around other stars. In fact a planet has been discovered orbiting our nearest neighbour Proxima Centauri.

We know that life on Earth exists in all sort of different conditions. So it is likely that the right conditions for life exists on other planets.

There are known to be billions of galaxies and each galaxy can have hundreds of thousands of stars. So even if life is a very rare event the chances are it will have developed on planets other than Earth.

It is very difficult to get direct evidence of another civilization. As far as we know nothing can travel faster than light. Travelling to other stars is currently beyond our capability and even if we could it would take a very long time to reach even the nearest stars.

Radio signals are a possibility for detecting other civilizations. Another civilization would have to have discovered radio and been transmitting long enough for the signals to reach us.

We have ben transmitting radio signals for just over a hundred years. Our signals will have reached relatively few other star systems, so the chances of them being received by another civilization are quite low.