Aliens Can’t Be Found Because They Died Young, New Study Suggests

New exoplanets are being discovered every other day due to missions like NASA's Kepler, which means there is more potential for finding extraterrestrial life. However, according to scientists, we are unable to detect aliens because anything that once lived is long dead and fossilized for billions of years, due to the instability and violence associated with the formation and evolution of their host planets, which makes their detection exceedingly tough.

A study has forwarded the suggestion that it is hard for life to persist in inhabitable conditions in spite of it being created in the first place. For instance, Mars and Venus were similar to Earth in their initial billion years, and this phase of the planets' history would have seen asteroid strikes which could have spread life between the worlds. However, 1.5 billion years after they were formed, Mars began to experience cooling and Venus started to heat up, reportedly leading to extinction of life.

According to the research, even if life formed on other planets, the young life reportedly didn't evolve fast enough to balance greenhouse gases, essential for maintaining compatibility between surface temperature, liquid water and habitability. There is a complex interaction between microbial communities and ecosystems that keeps a planet habitable; therefore it is not enough to have liquid water, energy sources or nutrients to sustain life, because life should have the ability to evolve fast. In addition, in the first billion years after their formation, it is tough for planets to maintain habitable environments.

The research further suggests that we should be thankful to the unpredictable evolution of microbes on Earth for saving life from being extinct. The researching team also added that perhaps their theory of dead aliens might come across as disappointing. Moreover, it doesn't seem likely that space faring or technologically advanced alien civilizations is flourishing somewhere because biological evolution alone isn't proof of human like intelligence prevailing.