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We heard this week that the Kepler Space Telescope has a second broken stabilizing wheel. Its four stabilizing wheels orient it in space. Without being able to aim its gaze, the telescope is probably done, three years prematurely.
The Kepler has definitely told us more about potential life outside our solar system than SETI. The SETI program's main contribution to our knowledge was from its negative results. It found no signals from other intelligent life, which made people begin to conjecture whether we are alone in the universe.
I'd say the data from the Kepler give us some indication why we're not getting any calls. What I give here is my only my hypothesis based on the data I present, and simple math, which I give at the bottom for those curious. I don't pretend to be an expert, but it's what I've put together myself.
It's a downer, though, so here are some cute kittens to watch first:
While we're likely not alone, humankind along with other intelligent life are "rare." I have to qualify that, however, because in a universe virtually infinite stars and planets, nothing is truly scarce. A better terms would probably be "sparse," or even better, "few and far between."
Out of 885 confirmed exoplanets, only 10 are listed as "Potential Habitable" [sic]. That's two percent. Kepler has spotted 2712 planets and potential planets. Of those, 18 are classified as potentially habitable. That's .6 percent.
We also know of 26 potentially habitable exomoons.
Doing the math based on these numbers (at the bottom) the odds that I've come up with for an exoplanet or exomoon harboring indigent intelligent life is anywhere from 1 in 250,000 to 1 in 6 million. If, optimistically, solar systems have an average of ten planets, that means at best, 1 in 25,000 have intelligent life.
This shows sentience is much more sparse than Star Trek would lead you to believe. It's more paltry, in fact, than any space-faring science fiction in pop culture.
But Charles! You forgot about exomoons. I don't think they matter too much. Though I think there's a reasonable chance an exomoon may harbor life, the chance that intelligent life could evolve on one would be even worse, because such a body would present a whole set of other challenges to survival at the macroscopic level. Though, let's say they double the odds. Now there's a 1 in 12,500 of intelligent life in a given solar system.
Therefore, we're not alone but we're isolated. My hypothesis by itself would explain why we're not hearing or seeing extraterrestrials, and why finding any ourselves will be a huge challenge. The chances that we have any intelligent life near enough to make even a first radio contact likely or even viable are very low.
I've said before that space has turned out to be far more daunting than we thought. In the optimistic SF from the middle twentieth century, writers presumed two things: interstellar space travel and infinite energy. It seems even then they sensed the only way humankind survived at the level they depicted would be with unlimited habitation space and a bottomless energy source. Neither of those panned out. Fusion energy was a bust, and whereas we do have space travel, it's not even interplanetary, and only a handful of people have traveled in space.
This is bad because so far humankind's "survival plan" has been to increase its population by billions, use up all our natural resources, and pollute the planet.
If we don't pull out a miracle from theoretical physics, it looks like we have nowhere to move to. The Earth has to get pretty horrific before real estate on Mars or the Moon look attractive. If it gets that bad, probably nobody's going to be able to leave.
We're not getting any breaks from the universe or nature. It looks to me like nobody's going to bale us out either.
Here are more cute kittens to raise your mood after that total bummer:
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The Math
Those are planets that might support life, and 0.6 to 2 percent chance do not sound that bad. However, the percentages become dismal when you talk about intelligent life. The earth had been habitable for 3.6 billion years, but for almost all of that, an extraterrestrial searching the planet would have no intelligent life. The genus homo evolved 2.5 million years ago, and anatomically modern humans have been around for only 250,000 years. So, doing the math, if the planet is habitable, there's a .064 percent chance it will have anything like sentient life. If you're talking about definite sentient life, then move the decimal one to the left, .0064 percent. If you're talking about sentient and having radio technology that might get someone's attention, a technology about 125 years old, give or take some, that's .0064 x .0005 = .0000032 percent chance that an an exoplanet would support sentient life at the time we looked. That's a 1 in 312,500 chance at worst, but if 2 percent of planets are potentially habitable, the percentage chance rises to 1 in 93844.
The numbers actually look better than I thought, until I remember the set we started out with were "potentially" habitable exoplanets. There's no way to estimate just how many of those potentials will pan out. In our solar system, Mars and Venus would fall into that category. By my thinking, potentially habitable are planets they can't rule out being habitable, which indicates the chance of habitability is pretty low. Optimistically, I'd say that means one in three. Pessimistically, its probably five percent. These are just guesses I pulled out of thin air. So multiplying 93,844 times 3.3 for the best odds and dividing 312,500 by .05 for the worst, and doing some creative rounding, I'd say the chance of having intelligent life intelligent life is 1 in 250,000 at best to 1 in 6 million at worst.
Yes, I admit this is a big range, but that's what happens when you can't assign a number to a word like "potential." The point is, by any estimate, the odds aren't good.
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How does that estimate effect me?
I think too much about things that depress me. Politics is one thing, but that's superseded by the thought that humankind might not survive this millennium. I hate to point this out, but life has really sucked since 2000. We've been off to a bad start, and given the politics, the future is beginning to look dystopic.
In the Sixties and Seventies, I was pessimistic about myself, but felt optimistic about the world and the future. Now, it's reversed. I love myself and my life, but the world is depressing. Thoughts about it tend to permeate my day. I'll admit fantasy and horror stories are how I survive, escaping into fictional worlds with characters that I love. That's why I need to write.
My moods lately have been running the gamut every day. I wake up energized and optimistic (after I completely wake up), and I go to bed depressed. Recently, I haven't been able to sleep. My depression is existential. To me, things don't look good overall. Loneliness is the other challenge.
I'll end this with a couple of cute cats talking about existential crises. I think:
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