Watching all the alien and space movies, we have all wondered about this question at least once in life: is there any other life present in the galaxy?

For several years, scientists have worked on this question but we never received a clear answer or any indication of aliens reaching out to us. However, scientists at the University of Nottingham have come up with a new cosmic evolution-based calculation that gives us some idea about aliens. According to them, at least 36 ongoing intelligent civilizations are present in our Milky Way Galaxy.

Source: Forbes

We all know that the Milky Way has around 100 billion to 400 billion stars and we are just part of one solar system in such a massive galaxy.

So the appearance of the scientists was published in The Astrophysical Journal today and it argues that intelligent life is present on other planets.

However, if people choose to argue against this assumption we would understand that because no solid foundation is present that can back this claim. It is just a calculation based on a lot of assumptions. The scientists say that it will take around 4.5 billion years to confirm this theory because it took us roughly the same amount of time to enter a technological civilization on Earth. So maybe life on other planets exists but they just do not know how to communicate.

This theory has been called Astrobiological Copernican Limit by the team of scientists. It revolves around:

1. Star formation histories.

2. How common metal-rich stars are (like the Sun).

3. The likelihood of stars hosting Earth-like planets in their habitable zones.

Source: Eunis

“The classic method for estimating the number of intelligent civilizations relies on making guesses of values relating to life, but opinions about such matters vary quite substantially,” said Tom Westby, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Engineering at the University of Nottingham, and lead author on the paper. “Our new study simplifies these assumptions using new data, giving us a solid estimate of the number of civilizations in our galaxy.”

If those 36 civilizations even exist, then we also need to raise the question of their survival. How long can they live and what means do they have on other planets for sustainability?

Source: UC Chicago Mag

“Searches for extraterrestrial intelligent civilizations not only reveals the existence of how life itself forms, but also gives us clues about how long our own civilization will last,” said Christopher Conselice, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Nottingham, who led the research. “If we find that intelligent life is common then this would reveal that our civilization could exist for much longer than a few hundred years. Alternatively, if we find that there are no active civilizations in our galaxy it is a bad sign for our own long-term existence.”