Researchers believe that looking for technological features, such as structures for generating massive amounts of energy, is not a good way to detect aliens.
Scientists have several ways in which they continue to search for extraterrestrial advanced civilizations in our galaxy. One way is to look for evidence for the existence of advanced technologies. A popular idea is to look for signs of Dyson spheres around stars or arrays of solar panels covering other planets.
But the authors of a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal believe that this is not the best way to search for aliens.
Researchers believe that as any civilization advances technologically, its energy needs increase significantly. This means that potential alien civilizations that have reached a high level of development will begin to build huge structures to receive all the light from their star, which can be converted into energy.
This can be done by building a so-called Dyson sphere around a star, or by building a huge array of solar panels on the planet’s surface. The authors of a new study believe it is possible that alien civilizations at a high level of technological development would not require so much energy.
According to scientists, even if the population of the Earth reaches, for example, 30 billion people, and most people have a high standard of living, and the only source of energy is the light of the sun, humanity will still use much less energy than all other people. the light of our star ensures that.
They say that in order for solar panels to be detected on an Earth-like planet within 30 light-years of us, they would need to cover at least 23% of the surface.
In this case, they will produce enormous amounts of energy, which will most likely exceed the needs of the alien civilization. The authors believe that aliens will not spend money on such expensive projects.
Scientists believe that an advanced civilization may also not use Dyson spheres because such technologies may already be outdated at a high level of civilization development. Most likely, aliens will use the energy of thermonuclear fusion or come up with other, more efficient ways to obtain energy than collecting starlight.
Based on this, the authors suggest that an alien civilization could survive and achieve a high level of development with only a portion of the total amount of energy produced by their home star.
Therefore, aliens are unlikely to attempt to continually expand their presence in the Galaxy. Aliens may colonize their planetary system and possibly a nearby planetary system. Therefore, galaxy-wide civilizations may not exist, scientists say.
