Humanity Will Need to Survive About 400,000 Years if We Want any Chance of Hearing From an Alien Civilization

Standing beside the Milky Way. Drowming out the night sky blocks us off from nature, and that's not good for humans. Credit: P. Horálek/ESO

If there are so many galaxies, stars, and planets, where are all the aliens, and why haven’t we heard from them? Those are the simple questions at the heart of the Fermi Paradox. In a new paper, a pair of researchers ask the next obvious question: how long will we have to survive to hear from another alien civilization?

Their answer? 400,000 years.

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