Humans Will Hear From Aliens Only After 1500 Years, Long Wait?

If you have been keeping a close watch at the skies or have devised a gadget with the hope of detecting alien signals, you might be disappointed to know that we are not meeting extraterrestrials for another 1500 years or so. Sorry to dishearten but aliens won't come calling in our lifetime, or at least that is what a team of astronomers from the Cornell University in US have suggested.  

The researching team of astronomers has reportedly formulated a new equation to define the Fermi Paradox, a philosophical puzzle that questions why aliens have not made contact with us if there are billions of Earth-like habitable planets in the Milky Way. In short, where are all the aliens, especially if the Universe is brimming with them?

As per the scientists' calculations, the signals from our planet have to reach out to at least half of the star systems in our galaxy for them to be tapped by an advanced alien civilization, and such an eventuality is unlikely to occur before the next 1,500 years. "We haven't heard from aliens yet, as space is a big place but that doesn't mean no one is out there," said Evan Solomonides, presenter of the paper at the Astronomical Society's Meeting in San Diego on June 16. "We are not in any special location in the universe; we should not be anything special in the universe. It's possible to hear any time at all, but it becomes likely we will have heard around 1,500 years from now. But if we stop listening or looking, we may miss the signals, so we should keep looking".

The first signals to be picked up by extraterrestrial life would be the radio and TV signals that have continuously been sent to space for the past 80 years as a result of broadcasting. The transmissions would be indecipherable by aliens unless they belong to an advanced civilization, and have the further knowledge and capability of translating radio waves into sounds and subsequently into their spoken language.

Moreover, according to the researchers, until now our planet's broadcast signals may have travelled to every star located within 80 light years from the Sun, which basically covers around 3,555 Earth-like planets and 8,531 stars. However, there is still a long way to go, because our galaxy has 200 billion stars. Incidentally, last year noted physicists Stephen Hawking and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner had announced a multi-million dollar project to search for alien life.