According to one study recently published by astrophysicists from Harvard University and Oxford University, life would be 1,000 times more likely to appear in the relatively distant future than to do so today. Man himself would be a « premature » of the Universe.
Life appeared on Earth – or more precisely in the terrestrial seas – less than 4 billion years ago. But, are we today still alone in the Universe? When you realize the immensity of the cosmos, it’s hard to imagine being an only child. However, according to researchers, the probability of witnessing the appearance of life today, somewhere in the Universe, is only 0.1%. In any case, this is what this new controversial study, led by Professor Avi Loeb from Harvard University, and published in the Journal of Cosmology.
According to the data collected, life in the universe would be much more likely in the future than now (the age of the Universe is estimated at around 14 billion years), partly because the elements necessary for life, such as carbon and oxygen, took tens of millions of years to grow after the Big Bang, and that the least massive stars, which are best suited to support life, can shine for billions of years, giving ample time for life to evolve in the future.
For Dr. Rafael Alves Batista, from the Oxford Department of Physics, “The main result of our research suggests that life in the Universe seems to be more likely in the future than now. This does not necessarily mean that we are currently alone, if a civilization today is worth 1000 in the future, then 1000 today is equivalent to 1,000,000 civilizations in the future” specifies the researcher.
To arrive at such probabilities, the team of researchers developed a master equation involving the number of habitable planets around stars, the number of stars in the universe at any given time (including their lifetime and birth rate, and the typical mass of newly born stars), and the time it takes for life to develop when favorable conditions arise.
So, the human, premature? It should be noted that the study is not yet unanimously accepted within the scientific community. Let us remember that a few months ago, researchers claimed that the chances of humanity being the first and only species, not only alive, but still intelligent, in the universe would be only one in ten billion. of trillions.
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