Translation Introduction:

It is undoubtedly an interesting idea to be one of the millions of advanced civilizations, but the existential question that has haunted humanity throughout history and constantly recurs in their minds is: Where did everyone go?

We may forget that space is so vast that if we were randomly shove into the universe, as astronomer Carl Sagan says, the chance of being near a planet is less than one in a billion trillion trillion.

Assuming there were advanced civilizations in the universe, as the writer Bill Bryson assumed, the average distance between two of any of these civilizations would be at least two hundred light-years.

Even if these beings know we are here and are somehow able to see us with their telescopes, they are watching the light that left Earth two hundred years ago.

And so she neither sees me nor sees you, she watches the French Revolution and people who don't know what atom is, who make electricity by rubbing an amber rod with a piece of fur and think it's a hoax.

Two hundred light years is far beyond our reach.

And so even if we are not alone, we are alone in all practical senses.

Translation text:

Throughout human history, the idea that our universe is teeming with other worlds about which we know nothing and orbiting around their suns was just an assumption.

At the time, astronomers could only use their telescopes to contemplate the distant stars, daydreaming, and wondering if there were other planets outside our solar system that were hidden behind the glow emanating from the stars around them!

If we think a little about how long people have spent staring at the sky over many decades, the bitter truth will become clear to us, which is that the efforts of scientists have taken over the years a somewhat slow pace that they have only been able to discover very few signs that indicate The existence of other worlds outside our solar system.

Fortunately, 30 years ago, more advanced capabilities appeared, and the days revealed to us the presence of hundreds of exoplanets (orbiting stars other than the sun) in our galaxy, the “Milky Way”, whose number has so far exceeded, according to NASA, about 5000 planets.

Nature is capable of embracing all kinds of worlds of all shapes and sizes, some of them are smaller than Mercury, and some of them are twice the size of Jupiter (Shutterstock).

In March of this year, NASA announced the discovery of 65 new planets in one go, and it included them in its archive of exoplanets, bringing the total number to 5005.

In the same context, astronomer Jesse Christiansen, of NASA's Institute for Exoplanet Science at the California Institute of Technology, says: "It has never been easy to find these planets, and the closest example of this is the desperate efforts that people have made over hundreds of years in order to discover anything "A new one may be on the horizon. For example, my recent searches for exoplanets were not successful until I went through four different searches."

The discovery of these exoplanets helped scientists in paving the way to elicit some exciting ideas about this universe, as it was found that nature is capable of embracing all kinds of worlds of different shapes and sizes, some of which are smaller than Mercury, and some of them are twice the size of Jupiter.

Some of them have a deadly cold climate, and others have scorching heat, and their characteristics range between rocky worlds, and others are gaseous and filled with clouds.

Therefore, the more scientists studied these planets, the more they became sure of the vastness of space, as it became clear to them that the nearest of these planets is located at a distance of 4.2 light years from us, while the farthest is located at a distance of two thousand light years from us.

Based on what scientists have reached so far from exploring the unknowns of the universe and exploring some of its secrets, they are now certain that our galaxy, the Milky Way, is teeming with billions of planets.

The goal of astronomers of all that they have sought so far is to find life on other planets, but this goal has not been achieved yet.

It is true that they discovered rocky exoplanets about the size of the Earth orbiting their stars from an appropriate distance that allows the availability of water in liquid form (it is not too close to the star for water to evaporate from its surface, nor is it too far from it to freeze), which theoretically qualifies it to become a habitable place in it (called that state in the viable range).

Despite scientists’ expectations that the universe is replete with billions of worlds around us, which could contain opportunities for life, research has not yet revealed any evidence suggesting the existence of life on other planets, and we have not received any messages or signals from those worlds that could indicate the existence of any images. For a minute life after.

Astronomers may be able to predict how many planets exist outside our solar system, but they still can't say how far they should go in their quest to discover other life beyond Earth.

Even with more than 5,000 worlds other than our own, we are still alone.

Suppose there have been other lives, the vast distances that separate us from them make us alone in every practical sense.

In the early 1990s, scientists were able to discover the first planets revolving around stars other than the sun, using ground-based telescopes that can detect oscillating stars as they rotate around their axes.

In 2009, everything changed after NASA launched the Kepler probe, to search for planets orbiting stars other than the Sun.

The Kepler telescope was able to observe hundreds of thousands of stars, and also noticed a fading in the brilliance of some stars, which indicates the possibility of a planet passing in front of it and was the reason for blocking its glow.

The probe finished its work in 2018, leaving behind a great achievement, which is the discovery of about two-thirds of the planets orbiting other stars outside our solar system, which number about 5005.

Kepler telescope (NASA)

Over the years, the discovery of these exoplanets aroused in scientists a sense of confusion mixed with happiness, as they can now at least identify these planets and list their names easily, although they do not seem to be the names of other planets as much as they appear to be serial numbers such as: HD 209458, HD 18973 GJ 121. The discovery of hot Jupiters, a class of giant gaseous exoplanets that are virtually Jupiter-like, but have very short orbital periods of up to days, shakes up stereotyped planet-forming notions, beating conventional ideas that have not taken these gas planets into account. Large across the wall.

Although some discoveries have shown that these exosystems with multiple planets may look a little familiar, they are nonetheless a little strange.

In 2017, scientists discovered seven Earth-sized planets orbiting a faint star called TRAPPIST-1, 40 light-years away from us. It only circulates for about 20 days.

Theoretically, this distant system could be a habitable habitat, because three of its planets are definitely in the habitable zone (ie, at an appropriate distance from the star, neither near nor far).

It is true that astronomers do not yet know the nature of the atmospheres of these planets, but they will soon obtain data from the new James Webb Telescope launched by NASA, which can pick up certain particles that confirm whether there is actually life on other planets or not.

Through their study of these planets, scientists see that the characteristics of the Earth are very rare, and the closest evidence of this is that we have not yet found a planet similar to Earth, and we have not found throughout these years a rocky planet the size of our planet with an atmosphere rich in chemicals and suitable temperatures that allow Water can flow all over the planet without boiling or freezing.

Planet Earth (networking sites)

But it is impossible to be convinced of this by the type of characters that have been possessed by the fever of exploring and tracking aliens, and wishing them to find life on other planets limited to microbial life only, but rather their primary goal is to find advanced civilizations.

And every time astronomers from the SETI Institute (a body that aims to search for life elsewhere than Earth) discover a new planet, they rush to point their telescopes at the star around which this planet orbits, even if it is not this planet. Similar to Earth, perhaps there is another planet hidden within this system.

From this point, we now realize that the greater the number of exoplanets discovered, the greater the chances of scientists to continue their search, and it is expected that new missions in the coming decades will increase with the intensification of ground and space telescopes.

So the most important question here remains: Will the discovery of nearly 5,000 planets outside our solar system, or even 10,000 or 20,000, give us a satisfactory answer to the existential question that has been haunting us?

Will this help find out if there is life on other planets?

In fact, the answer to this question is not related to the size of our stock of devices or the extent of their development, but rather depends on the universe itself, and how common life is in it.

It's like throwing a dice, the more chance you have of rolling the dice, the more likely you are to bump into a life-sustaining planet.

Meaning that out of the 100 billion planets in one galaxy, our planet may be the only one that has a chance of life on Earth, so we always wonder where everyone went?

Why are we still alone in this vast universe?

In fact, the more planets there are, the more confused we are, and the less chance we have of being near a habitable planet.

In the end, astronomers will continue to search for more planets that may lie outside our solar system, motivated by the hope of finding any form of life on these planets, because they believe that life on a galaxy of this size, full of billions of stars and planets in which life would be more common What the current statistics indicate.

Perhaps after a decade from now the number of confirmed planets in the archives of exoplanets will double, and then we may still roll the dice again and again, holding our breath, and apprehensive about what the unknown might hold for us.

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This article was translated from The Atlantic and does not necessarily represent the Meydan website.

Translation: Somaya Zaher.