Human beings were born millions of years ago, and human civilization was formed tens of thousands of years ago. Although human civilization has lasted for more than tens of thousands of years, the period that really brought the rapid development of mankind was only a short period of more than 200 years. After mankind has entered the age of technology.
Technology has a huge impact on the lifespan of human beings. It has completely changed our way of life. It also gives human civilization the opportunity to explore more mysterious things, to explore the truth of this world and the truth behind this universe. With the help of science and technology, mankind has walked out of the earth and realized the great dream of millions of years.
When on the earth, human beings will not feel lonely, because we are shrunk in the earth world, and our cognition and feelings are limited to human civilization. But when we step out of the earth and see the vast universe, our cognition and horizons are constantly expanding, allowing us to see the infinite possibilities that may exist outside the earth.
Every astronaut who walks out of the earth will have a kind of “loneliness”, and as we have more and more knowledge of the universe, this kind of “loneliness” will become stronger and stronger. The origin of the “loneliness” of the universe is actually our thinking about the possibility of extraterrestrial civilization in the universe.
At the moment when mankind just walked out of the earth and saw the vast universe, scientists were thinking: Does a civilization of wisdom like mankind exist? At the beginning, many people may have doubts about this, but as we continue to observe the universe, such doubts become less and less.
From the perspective of the Milky Way, there are at least hundreds of billions of stars in the entire Milky Way, and there are as many as trillions of terrestrial planets. From the perspective of the universe, the Milky Way is only one of the trillions of large galaxies within the current observable universe. With such a huge base, the probability of non-existence of alien civilization is far less than the probability of existence. In other words, the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilization is infinitely close to 100%.
Since the probability of the existence of alien civilizations is basically 100%, how do we find them? For this reason, scientists have launched an extraterrestrial civilization search program very early. As early as 1977, scientists launched Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 successively. In addition to exploring other planets in the solar system, their missions are more importantly moving forward outside the solar system. I hope that one day they will be able to Discovered by an alien civilization passing by the solar system.
The Voyager spacecraft carries a disc that records information about humans and the Earth. As long as an alien civilization discovers the Voyager one day in the future, the above disc will be able to know the existence of human beings, and through the information left on it Earth coordinate information can easily find the position of the solar system.
Although Voyager’s desire to explore extraterrestrial civilizations is beautiful, with the continuous advancement of technology, we have found that the probability of Voyager being discovered by alien civilizations is very small. The reason is that the true range of the solar system is far greater than in the past. With their speed, it may take at least tens of thousands of years to fly out of the solar system. In the tens of thousands of years, human civilization may have become an interstellar civilization and can easily get out of the solar system.
It can be seen that the success rate of relying on detectors to find extraterrestrial civilization is basically zero. Therefore, scientists focused on another search method, which is to determine whether an alien civilization exists by searching for signals of alien civilizations that may exist in the universe. So are there a lot of radio waves in the universe? The answer is yes.
In our opinion, the universe is a very quiet space environment, but in the eyes of radio telescopes, the universe is not quiet at all. There are various radio wave signals constantly shuttled everywhere. Most of these radio waves come from planets, stars, nebulae, supernova explosions and other natural things in the universe.
These natural electric waves from the universe are almost all messy and meaningless, while the radio waves of extraterrestrial civilization are different. Such electric waves are very regular. As long as we can receive these regular and mysterious electric waves, and then successfully crack them, it is possible to uncover the mystery of alien civilization.
Among the many cosmic radio waves, the one that fascinates scientists the most and finds it incredible is the “Fast Radio Waves” (FRB). This kind of short and very strong, regular radio wave, it can release amazing energy in just a few milliseconds.
The emission sources of “fast radio waves” are very far away from the earth, basically more than a few hundred million light-years. At such a long distance, it can still propagate to the earth, which shows how powerful the energy of this radio wave is. So what exactly is this fast radio wave? Is it a natural radio wave of the universe or a signal of civilization? Scientists are also unable to give definite answers.
Since the discovery of the first fast radio wave “010724” in 2007, mankind has discovered 110 fast radio waves. Most of these radio waves have only erupted once, and 10 of them have repeated eruptions, but none of them have regular periodicity.
However, this situation has now changed. In January 2020, the Dongzi Li team from the University of Toronto, Canada, who specializes in FRB, discovered a spiral galaxy named “SDSS J015800.28 + 654253.0” 500 million light-years away from the Earth through the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) radio telescope. Among them, a fast radio wave named “180916.J0158 + 65” is particularly regular.
They tracked the repeated outbreak of the radio wave between September 16, 2018 and October 30, 2019, and found that it would release radio signals twice an hour. The release process could last for 4 days, followed by 12 days of silence. Cycle again.
A regular signal that can be repeated many times has to remind us of extraterrestrial civilization. This is because according to normal scientific theories, even celestial bodies in the universe, like pulsars, can emit regular wireless signals, but they cannot appear repeatedly. As for the signals that can appear frequently, to a certain extent, there is a high probability that only powerful advanced civilizations can send out.
If this repetitive fast radio burst is indeed a civilization signal sent by advanced civilization to the earth, then we may be able to learn more about the mysterious cosmic signal of fast radio bursts. Perhaps this is the cosmic super-polar broadcast issued by the advanced civilization of the universe, and if this kind of broadcast is to spread to the very distant starry sky or even to the entire universe, the emission source must require very powerful energy.
This kind of energy is beyond our imagination. In the universe, perhaps only hegemonic celestial bodies like black holes can hope to achieve it. Secondly, it can be achieved by relying on the power of powerful technology. Therefore, for short-lived radio waves such as fast radio bursts, scientists believe that it may be broadcasts emitted by advanced civilizations, or super electric waves emitted by celestial bodies such as black holes or neutron stars.
Of course, for us, it is natural to hope that this repeated radio signal comes from an alien civilization. But to get this conclusion, the key is that we have to crack the mystery of this signal. If it is a civilized signal, then there must be content. If we can decipher the content of the signal, then we can be sure that this is an alien civilization signal.
Of course, with the current scientific and technological strength of mankind, it is very difficult to truly crack the mystery of such short-lived rapid radio bursts. Perhaps only when mankind’s science and technology go further and have more powerful detection and cracking technologies, we will have I hope to truly discover the mystery of rapid radio bursts.