Why No Alien Is Calling US From Space

“The universe is probably filled with habitable planets, so many scientists think it should be teeming with aliens”, Chopra said in a press release.

Chopra and Lineweaver suggest their new research provides some answer to this paradox and call it the “Gaian Bottleneck”.

But, as the scientists pointed out, although that there are many planets in the Universe that might theoretically sustain cellular and even sentient life, most of the organisms found on these worlds rarely survive the first phases of the evolutionary process. However, Mars turned into a freezing planet and Venus into a scorching stove. There’s no shortage of sun-like stars or Earth-like planets, no shortage of the necessary elements (hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus), no lack of energy.

“Life on Earth probably played a leading role in stabilizing the planet’s climate”, said Lineweaver. Devised by Robin Hanson of George Mason University, this theory suggests that some kind of cosmic-wide obstacle is preventing life from developing beyond a certain stage. The space agency is looking at Jupiter’s icy moon Europa for a chance that microbial life has grown and spread throughout the vast ocean underneath the surface crust.

Our planet Earth, already having the fantastic fortune to exist at just the right spot surrounding a stable star, initiated life and that life had a part to play in stabilizing its atmosphere as it evolved during the past 4 billion years.

Humanity has not been able to discover aliens because extraterrestrial life may die out before it becomes sophisticated enough to communicate with us.

We know from previous research that life on Earth managed to evolve so fast, it ended up regulating greenhouse gas emissions on a planetary scale, and this appeared to have a favourable effect on what’s known as our planet’s albedo – the ratio of reflected radiation to absorbed radiation.

The paper’s abstract explains further saying, “In the Gaian bottleneck model, the maintenance of planetary habitability is a property more associated with an unusually rapid evolution of biological regulation of surface volatiles than with the luminosity and distance to the host star”. In order to pass from the conclusion that planets which are really Earth-like are rare to the conclusion that it is the reason why we don’t perceive advanced aliens, we need the step in which we prove that any advanced aliens must evolve in the Earthlike setting. Most planetary environments are unstable. And that means the self-regulation of the climate of the planet via the input and output of the life forms.

Back in 2012, researchers in the U.S. came up with a possible solution – the high concentrations of warming greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), that were being regulated by early life likely kept the planet sufficiently warm before the Sun could.

The prerequisites and ingredients for life seem to be abundantly available in the Universe.