Astronomers now have a new tool to find advanced alien civilizations, as sensitive set of telescopes that enable astronomers to detect the waste heat that would be expected to be produced by any advanced civilization.
Unfortunately, alien life has yet to be detected.
Professor Michael Garrett has utilized this new technology to show that advanced alien civilizations are extremely uncommon or completely absent from our local universe.
Penn State University’s Dr. Jason Wright created a list of several hundred galaxies where particularly extreme emissions had been observed. Professor Garrett then used radio measurements from these galaxies to discover that these emissions had been created through natural astrophysical processes.
Garrett concluded that advanced civilizations are unlikely to exist in the local universe and that “an alien invasion is unlikely”.
The astronomer still has a few candidate galaxies that he plans to examine in further detail, but he believes that the emissions from these galaxies will also turn out to be nothing more than natural occurrences.
“But of course it’s worth checking just in case!” says Garrett
Garrett was attempting to identify alien civilizations far more advanced than humans on Earth. The “Kardashev” scale identifies the level of advancement that a civilization has achieved. Garrett was looking for a “Kardashev Type III” civilization. Earth has yet to achieve “Kardashev Type I”.
The professor says it is “worrying” that Type III civilizations are apparently non-existent, but he theorizes that they might be so energy efficient that they produce emissions that aren’t able to be detected.
In the future, Garrett plans on continuing his search for alien life, next time focusing on less advanced civilizations.
In the meantime, his main results will be presented in the European journal of Astronomy & Astrophysics.
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