Universe
We are practically alone in this universe
It does not matter whether aliens exists or not
I believe life is quite common in the universe, although intelligent life is less so. Some may say it has yet to appear on planet earth ~ Stephen Hawking
There is an age-old debate about whether we are alone in this cosmos or there are other life forms somewhere. At least given that there are trillions of stars and planetary bodies in the universe, it is quite likely that other forms of life might exist in some of them.
And this may be true. Just like initial conditions in the earth were favorable enough to form life, the odds are that it will be favorable enough for some other form of life as well.
Although them contacting us does not seem to be very practical, irrespective of how technologically advanced or curious they are. The two major laws that prevent this from happening are the laws of physics and the laws of economics.
In this article, I will tell you why you probably won't hang out with any alien lifeform in your lifetime. At least given the current technologies, we have, our lifetime, and a fundamental limit the laws of physics have imposed on us …
The speed of light
Nature decrees that we do not exceed the speed of light. All other impossibilities are optional. ~ Robert brault
Just like there are speed limits on roads and you are not supposed to cross them, there is a fundamental speed limit to this universe. The only difference being you cannot cross this limit even if you want to. It's impossible, quite literally.
Light is the fastest “thing” in the universe. It is also one of the most mysterious things in the universe. At almost an incredible 0.3 million Kms per second, light can make rounds of the entire earth 7 times in a single second!
Although it turns out that this speed limit is quite low for any contact with other life forms. Even at this speed, it is not possible to reach even the nearest star soon let alone other galaxies. Here is why …
Things are far apart in space
Space is vast, unimaginably vast. Even if you travel at the speed of light, it would take you 25 years just to reach the second nearest star Proxima Centauri (the nearest being the sun which will still take 8 minutes).
Let alone travel if you want to chat with someone sitting on a planet of Proxima Centauri it would take 50 years just to get a reply back.
And if you want to leave the galaxy? 52,850 years(make sure to pack a lot of food).
This means that no matter how technologically advanced an alien life form is, they can never reach us in a practical amount of time due to the limits enforced by the laws of physics. Only if they had started their journey earlier when we were living in caves maybe they will be arriving by now.
Apart from this fact, there are laws of economics preventing the aliens to come on an earth tour. When we imagine aliens, our naive brains always tend to imagine them as some curious or hostile beings with an infinite supply of materials, time, or money. But we never imagine that they might have economics there also.
No matter where they are if aliens have a complex functioning society they must have functioning economics. Let's look at this from an economic perspective …
Earth tour is not economically viable
Let's guess why would they come to earth?
To collect gold and other raw materials? well, space is filled with such materials, no reason to come this far. Just take some from nearby asteroids or planets.
Maybe they just want to say hello or to destroy us. Manufacturing a starship that would travel for thousands of years and then onboarding it, embarking upon the journey will be an insanely costly affair for them too. Will it make any economic sense? very unlikely.
Conclusion
Given all these factors it is really unfathomable how alien life forms can have contact with us in a practical amount of time. Or at all. There are sufficient reasons to discourage us from doing the same. So the question of whether aliens exist or not does not have any practical significance and probably won't affect us, earthlings, anyway at least in the near future. We, the 7.6 billion of us, are practically alone in the vastness of the universe …
