We Are Babies: Why Any Aliens We Contact or Meet Are Likely to Be Very Advanced

So there is this scientific paper detailing research into the ages of terrestrial planets like Earth. called: "Cosmological Constraints on
Terrestrial Planet Formation".

Like most academic papers, a lot of the language is high level and technical but one chart will jump out at you:



See that vertical line? That's the age of the Earth. Most planets like the Earth, 75% of them are older (the dark gray area to the left) and since it is unlikely we'd receive communication or travel from planets younger than Earth (the area to the right of the line) it stands to reason that aliens we encounter won't be just around our level but very far beyond it.

Just how far beyond? Try about 2 billion years ahead of us.

Here's an excerpt from the paper:

Earths have been produced since about 2.4 billion years after the big bang and our Earth was built 4.6 billion years
ago, 8.8 billion years after the big bang (Lineweaver 1999). The dark grey area to the left of 8.8 billion years is a measure of the number of earth-like planets older than ours, about 74 ± 9% are older. We live on a young planet.

The first earth-like planets were formed about 11 billion years ago so the oldest are about 6.4 billion years older than our Earth.

The age of the average earth in the Universe is 6.4 ± 0.9 billion years, that is, it formed about 7 billion years after the big bang. Thus, the average earth in the Universe is 1.8 ± 0.9 billion years older than our Earth. And, if life exists on some of these earths, it will have evolved, on average, 1.8 billion years longer than we have on Earth.

For comparison, the thin line is the star formation rate normalized to the earth production rate today. The time delay between the onset of star formation and the onset of earth production is the ∼ 1.5 billion years that it took for metals to accumulate sufficiently to form earths.

So in other words we are not very likely to be "the first" technological civilization but closer to the youngest technological civilization. We are babies.

What or who might be looking at us as we begin to stand up and take our first steps in the Milky Way galaxy is anyone's guess.

For more information read: How to Learn a Star's True Age

without the need for heavy math...I'm thinking...if they aren't more advanced than us...than they are bound to their planet and are unable to establish any contact. Having our current tech at mind...any possible contact is bound to be with someone that can come to us...no ? Therefore...no graphs and math needed. Sometimes simple reasoning is enough

a reply to: JadeStar

Actually I dread any contact from an alien form because if they are like our 12 % of psychos, we don't stand a chance as we have a beautiful planet with many assets other planets don't appear to have - provided the aliens share our biological needs.

I was horrified to see scientists had sent into space pictures of us and other information. I am not sure aliens would be our friends especially if they see how we behave and the various forms of slavery 99% of the population of this planet currently live under.

I do know our time, in the greater picture of our future is limited to when we actually collide with Andromeda although its in the far future, that time will rush towards us quickly enough.

a reply to: JadeStar

It has always cracked me up how many people remain skeptical about highly advanced civilizations.

The hubris that such ignorance can create!

Thank you for bringing this paper to my attention, as I shall use this in my discussion of possibilities of advanced life!

I am sure you have seen this video, however the sheer magnitude of our universe is beyond description and at this current level of consciousness understanding!

A tiny chunk of our neighbor galaxy!

originally posted by: MarioOnTheFly
without the need for heavy math...I'm thinking...if they aren't more advanced than us...than they are bound to their planet and are unable to establish any contact. Having our current tech at mind...any possible contact is bound to be with someone that can come to us...no ? Therefore...no graphs and math needed. Sometimes simple reasoning is enough

That's assuming that other civilizations would develop at the same pace. More advanced doesn't necessarily mean older. If their basic level of intelligence is different, that would affect their learning. Also, our people take small steps regularly in various fields, but the big "leaps" in our advancement have occurred kind of randomly. Slightly different circumstances at various points in history could have had a major effect on where we are now.

Also, it's doubtful they would hold the same values. The inhabitants of another planet might not have weaponry and rocket ships to rival Earth's, but maybe they'd have all their known diseases cured, for example. So "advancement" is subjective.

originally posted by: MarioOnTheFly
without the need for heavy math...I'm thinking...if they aren't more advanced than us...than they are bound to their planet and are unable to establish any contact. Having our current tech at mind...any possible contact is bound to be with someone that can come to us...no ? Therefore...no graphs and math needed. Sometimes simple reasoning is enough

That reasoning is correct but having numbers which relate to physical things to back it up makes it valid not simply that you thought of it.

It also helps to know where we, our planet, our species fits on that great time scale of the universe. Without knowing that it would be hard to say just how much more advanced anyone who can come to us would likely be. Now we know it's not going to be hundreds, or even thousands of years more advanced but millions and billions more advanced

originally posted by: Shiloh7
a reply to: JadeStar

Actually I dread any contact from an alien form because if they are like our 12 % of psychos, we don't stand a chance as we have a beautiful planet with many assets other planets don't appear to have - provided the aliens share our biological needs.

Actually there are around 40 billion planets like Earth in the Milky Way galaxy alone which could be just as beautiful if not even more beautiful than our Earth. And a good portion of them may be uninhabited (the ones younger than Earth).



I would not fear such contact. If anything they'd be as curious about us as we would be about them because even though life may be common in the universe, advanced, technological life might still be precious.

originally posted by: elementalgrove
a reply to: JadeStar

It has always cracked me up how many people remain skeptical about highly advanced civilizations.

The hubris that such ignorance can create!

Thank you for bringing this paper to my attention, as I shall use this in my discussion of possibilities of advanced life!

I am sure you have seen this video, however the sheer magnitude of our universe is beyond description and at this current level of consciousness understanding!

A tiny chunk of our neighbor galaxy!

Your welcome.

And thanks for the video on M31/Andromeda. She is beautiful isn't she? Imagine how much more beautiful our sky will be when our two galaxies begin to merge in 4 billion years...

Of course by "our sky" I mean the one of humanity on some exoplanet circling another star because if we are still around, we will long have left our Solar System as the Sun will make life on Earth unbearable in about 1 billion years as it begins its slow march towards becoming a red giant.

originally posted by: MoreInterior

originally posted by: MarioOnTheFly
without the need for heavy math...I'm thinking...if they aren't more advanced than us...than they are bound to their planet and are unable to establish any contact. Having our current tech at mind...any possible contact is bound to be with someone that can come to us...no ? Therefore...no graphs and math needed. Sometimes simple reasoning is enough

That's assuming that other civilizations would develop at the same pace. More advanced doesn't necessarily mean older. If their basic level of intelligence is different, that would affect their learning. Also, our people take small steps regularly in various fields, but the big "leaps" in our advancement have occurred kind of randomly. Slightly different circumstances at various points in history could have had a major effect on where we are now.

Of course. However there doesn't appear to be anything remarkable about the pace at which we have developed. And in going with the Copernican way of thinking, we're probably average in our speed of development. Neither faster than normal nor slower than normal.

It's a decent assumption to make because our Sun is an average star, our planet is pretty average as well.

Also, it's doubtful they would hold the same values. The inhabitants of another planet might not have weaponry and rocket ships to rival Earth's, but maybe they'd have all their known diseases cured, for example. So "advancement" is subjective.

Well there would be a drive towards space travel if for nothing other than survival of the species. All stars eventually balloon out as they age so a planet which was comfortable for the first 4 billion years or so might become very uncomfortable in another 2 billion thus forcing a species to spread out first beyond its world then beyond its solar system.

Our own Sun will make life on Earth impossible in 1 billion years so we too are destined for the stars. If not we're destined to become stardust once again.

a reply to: JadeStar

Is that what they say shall be happening!

I love knowing that we get to travel the entire Universe in various forms for eternity!

It is quite epic and in the scheme of things helps to take things a little bit less seriously!

Thank you for the PDF, will def put that with all my favs to read

Life on other Planets, 12min vid with Neil Degrasse Tyson. We are made of star stuff seeded from the universe. I love his analogy, humans would prob look like drooling or babbling idiots to any extraterrestrial lifeforms, since they would or may have an intelligence greater than Earth humans at about the same percentage as our intelligence in comparison to chimps. I suggest if we believe scientist that we are made of the same elements as the universe, it stands as a truth that there IS LIFE everywhere here and outside of our beautiful little Earth.

2 billion years older than Earth...

2 billion years from now, Earth will be a scorched, tortured, lifeless rock.

I imagine many of those "older Earths" will suffer a similar fate.

a reply to: MarioOnTheFly

Most def agree I do believe if we are at this level of intelligence there must be others at the same level we do not know about since our degree of space travel is very limited and we only explore a very small percentage of our known galaxy/universe. So who is to say there cannot possibly be an equally advanced life form such as ours and there has to be other beings that are at exceedingly more advanced intelligent levels than we are. Just look at the range of intellect on our planet, the naivete/ignorant/simple to genius levels. The majority of human beings falling somewhere in the middle of that range IMO, LOL or at least I hope we do.

originally posted by: elementalgrove
a reply to: JadeStar

Is that what they say shall be happening!

I love knowing that I get to travel the entire Universe in various forms for eternity!

It is quite epic and in the scheme of things helps to take things a little bit less seriously!

Yes indeed.

a reply to: JadeStar

We certainly must agree with these assumptions as far as they go given our understandings of the physical Universe. But my argument is that they always stop short of getting into any realms of existence beyond the physicality of creatures. We have few concepts that allow honest discussions of what comes next from our present state of consciousness which for the time being is animal based. Don't we have evidence (rarely accepted) that there is a "spiritual" side of existence that we have only glimpsed and can aspire to? And are we not approaching a time when our "existence" might also be in electronic form? Or is the Universe based on a consciousness that is itself capable of action?

Anyway, let the Force be with you, you may need it when ETs show themselves to defy all that we can envision about them (or our future selves). As I've mentioned many times on ATS, let Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End be your primer.

originally posted by: CJCrawley
2 billion years older than Earth...

2 billion years from now, Earth will be a scorched, tortured, lifeless rock.

I imagine many of those "older Earths" will suffer a similar fate.

That depends.

Different size stars have different life spans. These different sizes which correspond with how hot or cool they are classified into categories (O,B,A,F,G,K,M and so on). You may have learned this in science class at some point. The length of time in which a star is stable before it begins its death slide is called its "Main Sequence" the bulk of its life as a shining star. During its stay in the main sequence, the light it emits remains fairly stable, though it increases slightly over time. In the next billion years, our own sun will have increased in brightness about ten percent, all but destroying life on Earth.

Here is a chart of the length of the main sequences of different classes of stars (organized top down from the Smallest and Coolest to Largest and Hottest):



The chart, below, shows the estimated life-spans of stars based on their initial mass. This mass determines how hotly the star burns which determines its surface color. The range of colors has been divided into spectral classes from the most massive to the least, by the letters O, B, A, F, G, K and M. This system of classification is a holdover from previously erroneous ideas of stellar evolution. On this scale of letters, a finer scale of numbers has been added so that stars slightly dimmer and cooler than our own sun—which is a G2 star—are labeled "G3," "G4" and "G5."



As you can see stars cooler than our Sun (K and M stars) have longer lives. In fact some K and M stars have lifetimes so great that it is suspected they will still be shining in the main sequence near the end of the universe (that red question mark).

So a planet like the Earth in the habitable zone around an M class Sun would have longer before its Sun left the main sequence and started ballooning up.

So how common are K or M stars?

More common than stars like our Sun:



You should focus on the column all the way on the right labelled "Fraction of all Main Sequence Stars". That tells you the percentage of these stars overall.

Yellow G-stars like our Sun make up only 7.6% of all stars in our Milky Way galaxy.

Orange K-stars like Sigma Draconis or 54 Piscium make up 12.1% of all stars in our Milky Way galaxy

-and-

Red M-stars like Gliese 667 or Proxima Centauri (the nearest star to our Sun) make up 76.45% of all stars in our Milky Way galaxy.

So.... the VAST MAJORITY of stars in our galaxy have lifetimes longer than our Sun. So not only is it likely that any advanced aliens will have been around longer than us it is likely that the star they orbit will have a longer life span than our Sun.

By the way if you are interested in the whole system used to classify stars it should be noted that it was pretty much created by women astronomers at Harvard in the late 1890s at a time when women in the sciences and astronomy in particular were rare. The women were called computers and an episode of Neil DeGrasse Tyson's COSMOS details their work in Episode 8: Sisters of the Sun.

Worth a watch here:



And the show after the show...

originally posted by: Aliensun
a reply to: JadeStar

We certainly must agree with these assumptions as far as they go given our understandings of the physical Universe. But my argument is that they always stop short of getting into any realms of existence beyond the physicality of creatures. We have few concepts that allow honest discussions of what comes next from our present state of consciousness which for the time being is animal based. Don't we have evidence (rarely accepted) that there is a "spiritual" side of existence that we have only glimpsed and can aspire to?

Well science concerns itself with the natural world. I will leave the supernatural to you to speculate on because one can not really apply science to gods, angels, spirits, faeries, and the like. Anyone who tells you differently is likely a fraud or has a suspect agenda.

And are we not approaching a time when our "existence" might also be in electronic form?

Yes.

Or is the Universe based on a consciousness that is itself capable of action?

That is a question that believe it or not is being investigated.

Anyway, let the Force be with you, you may need it when ETs show themselves to defy all that we can envision about them (or our future selves). As I've mentioned many times on ATS, let Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End be your primer.

That was a great book and I found it wonderful. I really hope the rumor I heard about it being made into a movie is true!

a reply to: JadeStar

Looking for the book I found this, be looking forward to watching

It's Official:
Syfy Greenlights 'Childhood's End' Miniseries ...
deadline.com/.../childhoods-end-miniseries-syfy-greenlight...
Deadline.com
Sep 3, 2014 - As we scooped last night, Syfy has greenlighted Childhood's End, a six-hour miniseries based on Arthur C. Clarke's classic to premiere in 2015.

One of my favorite quotes:
"The universe is vast and men are but tiny specks on an insignificant planet. But the more we realize our minuteness and our impotence in the face of cosmic forces, the more astonishing becomes what human beings have achieved".
Bertrand Russell

In fact, even we do not look at planets far away, just take a look at the earth, the planet we are living at, about 100 years ago, intercontinental travel took days or weeks on the ships; 500 years ago, intercontinental travel belonged to great explorers; 1,000 years ago, intercontinental travel was beyond imagination. Then consider intercontinental travel 10,000 years ago, 100,000 years ago...

Now consider those civilizations in this universe which have been developing for millions years ahead of us, coming to the earth may be just a kind of intercontinental travel; for those billions years ahead of us, could it be just like hiking nearby？

I don't know which level of civilizations we belong to, but I tend to believe that it is much safer to say we are not an advanced civilization in this universe than to claim that intelligent species should be human alike.

originally posted by: elementalgrove
a reply to: JadeStar

It has always cracked me up how many people remain skeptical about highly advanced civilizations.

The hubris that such ignorance can create!

Some would even say arrogance.