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Off World (http://futurism.com/offworld/)

Study Asserts That Earth is Not The First IntelligentCivilization In The Universe

Cumberg

IN BRIEF

Two scientists from the University of Rochester and the University of Washington have developed an “archaeological form” to thefamous Drake equation, which will allow us to determine how many technological civilizations have formed in the history of theuniverse. And it seems there may be a number of them.

THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE

Are we alone? It is, perhaps, one of the most significant questions human beings have ever asked—right up there with “Why are we here?”and “How did it all begin?”

Indeed, as soon as we understood that the universe was not circumscribed by the Earth’s horizons, but extended outward forunfathomable distances and contained within its compass innumerable worlds like our own, we began to wonder whether we are uniqueand alone, or if there might not be others out there—like us, and yet very unlike us.

The famous “Drake equation (http://futurism.com/alone-calculating-number-alien-civilizations/),” formulated by astronomer FrankDrake (http://futurism.com/know-your-scientist-frank-drake/) in 1961, sought to establish a mathematical, probabilistic framework tounderstand the question of whether or not humanity ia really alone in the cosmos; it used a number of ingenious terms to estimate thenumber of technological civilizations in our galaxy.

The problem with Drake’s formulation was that three of those t erms, in particular, were just too uncertain to permit a reliable estimate.

According to Adam Frank (http://www.rochester.edu/news/are-we-alone-in-the-universe/), astronomy and physics professor at theUniversity of Rochester, and a coauthor of the paper (appearing in the journal(http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/ast.2015.1418) Astrobiology(http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/ast.2015.1418) ): “We’ve known for a long time approximately how many stars exist. Wedidn’t know how many of those stars had planets that could potentially harbor life, how often life might evolve and lead to intelligentbeings, and how long any civilizations might last before becoming extinct.”

Infographic of the Drake equation and its new “Archaeological form” addendum. Credit: University of Rochester

SETTING SOME LIMITS

Recent exoplanet research, particularly with the Kepler Space Telescope, has constrained the first of these terms, determining that aboutone-fifth of stars possess planets within their habitable zones.

That leaves the second and third terms—the robabilit for advanced life to evolve, and the lon evit of technolo ical civilizations—but

http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/ast.2015.1418http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/ast.2015.1418http://www.rochester.edu/news/are-we-alone-in-the-universe/http://futurism.com/know-your-scientist-frank-drake/http://futurism.com/alone-calculating-number-alien-civilizations/http://futurism.com/offworld/

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Frank and his colleague, Woodruff Sullivan of the University of Washington, simply altered the math a little. They eliminated the secondterm by calculating the odds against humankind being the only advanced civilization in the universe; and they dismissed the third byformulating a “cosmic archaeological question”—how often does intelligent life evolve throughout cosmic history?

Their new equation, which they call the “Archaeological form” of the Drake equation, looks like this—N x f .

Nast, the number of habitable planets, is defined as N = N* x f x n , where N* is the total number of stars, f is the fraction that formplanets, and n is the average of those planets circling in the habitable zones of their parent stars (http://futurism.com/solar-system-three-earths-astronomers-find-trio-potentially-habitable-worlds/). The second term of the Archaeological form equation, f , is defined asthe likelihood of an advanced technological civilization arising on one of these habitable planets.

The results suggest that humankind is only likely to be unique if the odds of another civilization developing on a habitable world are less

than one in 10 .

That’s a very—some might say improbably—small number.

“To me, this implies that other intelligent, technology producing species very likely have evolved before us,” says Frank. “Think of it thisway: before our result you’d be considered a pessimist if you imagined the probability of evolving a civilization on a habitable planet were,say, one in a trillion. But even that guess, one chance in a trillion, implies that what has happened here on Earth with humanity has in facthappened about 10 billion other times over cosmic history!”

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Source: Rochester (http://www.rochester.edu/news/are-we-alone-in-the-universe/)

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