We haven’t contacted aliens yet, although you could never say we haven’t tried.
Unfortunately, a new research paper published in The Astrophysical Journal says that we could be as far away (or as close) as 400,000 years from making any form of extraterrestrial communication, if it even exists in the first place.
Looking for Communicating Extraterrestrial Intelligent Civilizations (CETI), the probability of a single star being amenable for life in the Earth’s galaxy is at a miniscule percentage.
But it isn’t zero (yet), so studies will continue.
That age-old question of, “are we alone?” continues to boggle, and the two authors of the study, Wenjie Song and He Gao, said that the research will never cease until humankind had answers.
“As the only advanced intelligent civilisation on the Earth, one of the most puzzling questions for humans is whether our existence is unique,” they said.
“There have been many studies on extraterrestrial civilisation in the past few decades.”
Those studies have proved fruitless thus far.
If you’re a skeptic, then don’t worry; so are the men behind the science.
Both Dr Song and Dr Gao said that any form of life or communication would remain entirely in the hypothesis stage until any positive detection was made.
A 2020 study said that there was likely 36 CETIs in the Milky Way.
The focal point of the study (based at the Beijing Normal University) is the Drake Equation, a concept that can be traced back to the 1960s that provides estimations on things such as star formation and habitable zones for extraterrestrial life.
“Most studies on this problem are based on the Drake Equation,” the authors of the study wrote.
“The obvious difficulty of this method is that it is uncertain and unpredictable to quantify the probability that life may appear on a suitable planet and eventually develop into an advanced communicating civilization.”
Read the Universe Today’s report on this for figures, graphs and a detailed explanation of the theory behind the science.