Those wishing to hear from our neighbors in space may have to wait long. Experts claim to have figured out when intelligent civilization will make contact.
Despite intensified efforts to cry out to the intelligent civilizations, we - and our descendants are unlikely to live to see that day.
Scientists estimate that it will take 400,000 years for humanity to obtain an answer.
Researchers detailed this in the study, "The Number of Possible CETIs within Our Galaxy and the Communication Probability among These CETIs," published in The Astrophysical Journal.
People wearing face masks watch the sunset as they wait to see the planets Jupiter and Saturn during the great conjunction at the Griffith Observatory on the same day as the winter solstice, December 21, 2020 in Los Angeles, California. - The great conjunction refers to the astronomical alignment of Jupiter and Saturn, the closest for nearly 400 years.
Humanity Needs To Wait Too Long To Talk To Our Space Neighbors
Scientists have revealed plans to send a radio message deep into space, showing Earth's position hoping that an intelligent civilization may receive and understand it one day.
A separate study has now predicted how long it could take for intelligent life to answer back our efforts to reach out to them.
According to scientists from Beijing Normal University, the best-case scenario is roughly two millennia. Still, the worst-case situation is far longer - 400,000 years.
"As the only advanced intelligent civilization on the Earth, one of the most puzzling questions for humans is whether our existence is unique," the authors Wenjie Song and He Gao wrote in their study (per Daily Mail). "The reason why we have not received a signal may be that the communication lifetime of human is not long enough at present."
Many investigations of space civilization have been conducted in recent decades.
Researchers from the University of Nottingham determined that there are likely to be 36 Communicating Extraterrestrial Intelligent Civilisations (CETIs) in the Milky Way in a prior study released in 2020.
Calculations considering galactic star formation histories and the possibility of stars having Earth-like planets in their habitable zones yielded this image.
Until any definitive detection is achieved, the question of intelligent and communicative civilizations will remain exclusively in the province of theory.
However, the authors emphasized that models for reasonable estimations of the incidence rate of such civilizations may still be developed.
How Researchers Came Up With The Numbers
With so little evidence available, how did they come up with a high number like 400,000 years?
The Scottish Sun said researchers utilized a complicated computation that took into account galactic star formations and assessed the potential of Earth-like planets inhabiting stars in their habitable zones.
In recent years, probabilistic approaches to the Fermi Paradox have been proposed, implying that our current search for intelligent civilizations is still quite restricted and may remain so.
After all, if someone were hunting for us, they'd have to be in a pretty tiny part of the galaxy to pick up Earth signals. However, the scientists recognize that their odds are subject to considerable uncertainty, so there may be a chance to interact with intelligent civilizations sooner rather than later.
"It is quite uncertain what proportion of terrestrial planets can give birth to life, and the process of life evolving into a CETI and being able to send detectable signals to space is highly unpredictable," the authors explain per Universe Today (via IFL Science).
They do agree, however, that it will stay entirely in the realm of speculation until a definitive detection can be made.
Until then, scientists want to update the message we send into space that reveals Earth's position, despite some people worrying it may lead to an extraterrestrial invasion.
RELATED ARTICLE: Scientists Express Concern That Sending Another Message To Space Will Attract 'Hostile' Life
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