Why have we still not found any evidence for the existence of alien life? This question has long confused scientists that even the famous Fermi Paradox was developed. One suggestion of worldwide silence in the Universe offers the theory that advanced civilizations may have been victims of their own technological advances, leading to climate catastrophes and their extinction.
In a recent study, scientists modeled the development of hypothetical alien civilizations, and the results were quite disturbing. Even with renewable energy, high demand could overheat the planet, making it uninhabitable in less than a thousand years.
This suggests the second law of thermodynamics, which states that all energy systems must release heat. Astrophysicist Manasvi Lingam explained the concept through the analogy of a bathtub: if you let it fill up nonstop, the house will flood. On a planetary scale, such flooding corresponds to overheating of the atmosphere due to the accumulation of waste heat.
The study revealed that a technologically advanced civilization can make their planet uninhabitable in less than 1,000 years, which on a cosmic scale is an instant. This warning is based in part on the history of humanity’s industrial development. In 2023, humanity consumed 180,000 terawatt hours of energy – as much as the Earth gets from the Sun.
The future of civilizations depends on the ability to stop the growth of energy consumption or transfer its production off the planet. Such a solution could allow intelligent species to survive for billions of years.
But there is another suggestion: it is possible that the growing energy demands of some alien civilizations drive them to extinction before they can develop the means to detect other intelligent life forms like us.
Earlier we reported that satellites found unknown ruins of a dead civilization.
According to livescience.com
