What if humanity really is alone in the Universe? – 06/11/2023 – Sidereal Messenger

Many people consider this hypothesis close to impossible, given the superlative numbers that astronomy brings. We know that, in our galaxy alone, there are billions of planets similar to Earth, and beyond it, billions of similar galaxies, both gestated over the 13.8 billion years of the Universe’s life, in which the Sun and our planet only took part by the last 4.6 billion. But what if, despite all this, we are in fact alone in the Universe?

Let’s face it, it’s not unreasonable at all. It is true that our search for life in other corners of the Solar System, and even beyond it, is just beginning and we have only taken a cursory look. But it is also true that we do not know very well how life actually began on Earth, which means admitting that we lack an estimate of the probability that the same phenomenon will occur again and again, even under very similar conditions.

Going further, although there are doubts about the origin of life, we know very well how it evolves –driven by natural selection–, and there is no clear sign that intelligence is a frequently selected trait. In the 4 billion years that life has existed on Earth, there has only been one species capable of reading this text. If it disappeared, it is quite possible that there will be no time for another with similar capacity to appear, over the last billion years that remain before the planet becomes uninhabitable due to the increase in brightness of the Sun.

Faced with the unknown, I tend to adopt, like (I suppose) most, the most optimistic hypothesis: that the Earth is just one of many shelters for life, which in turn would be a relatively common phenomenon, so that even given the low probability of the emergence of intelligent species from time to time to generate creatures capable of contemplating the Universe and trying to interpret it. Maybe too far away from us in space or time for us to find them, true. Still, they would be there. But what if we’re wrong on this one? What if it’s really just us?

It puts even more frightening relief on what we are doing to our beautiful world. With the devastation of ecosystems and climate change, we are already having an effect comparable to the great mass extinctions marked in the fossil record. Faced with so many challenges, from environmental to social, including technological ones, we multiply the probabilities of a civilizational collapse. And, in this one, maybe we’re not just trashing our turn in the history of the cosmos. Perhaps we are throwing away the chance of the Universe actually becoming alive, with life everywhere.

Our cosmic solitude, as long as it lasts, greatly increases our responsibility – perhaps it falls to us not only to find a way to preserve the health of our biosphere (which would be our duty anyway), but also to bring life to other corners of space. , so that it can thrive beyond our planet. Looking at it this way, the colonization of Mars would stop being a dream of billionaires and would become one of the most important tasks that humanity has to carry out.

This column is published on Mondays in the printed version, in Folha Corrida.

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