People are looking for aliens wrong: they use thermonuclear energy

Researchers believe that looking for techno-signatures, such as structures for generating huge amounts of energy, is not a good way to detect aliens.

Scientists have several ways in which they continue to search for extraterrestrial advanced civilizations in our galaxy. One way is to look for evidence of the existence of advanced technologies. One popular idea is to look for signs of Dyson spheres around stars or arrays of solar panels covering other planets.

But the authors of a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal believe that this is not the best way to search for aliens.

Researchers believe that as any civilization develops technologically, its energy needs increase significantly. This means that potential alien civilizations that have reached a high level of development will begin to build huge structures to receive all the light from their star, which can be converted into energy.

This can be done by building a so-called Dyson sphere around a star, or by building a huge array of solar panels on the planet’s surface. The authors of a new study believe that it is possible that extraterrestrial civilizations do not need so much energy at a high level of technological development.

According to scientists, even when the Earth’s population reaches, for example, 30 billion people, and most people have a high standard of living, and the only source of energy is the light of the Sun, humanity will still use much less energy than all the light from our star provides.

They say that in order to detect solar panels on an Earth-like planet within a radius of 30 light years from us, they need to cover at least 23% of its surface.

In this case, they will produce huge amounts of energy, which will most likely exceed the needs of extraterrestrial civilization. The authors believe that aliens will not spend money on such expensive projects.

Scientists believe that an advanced civilization may also not use Dyson spheres, because such technologies may already be outdated at a high level of civilization development. Most likely, aliens will use the energy of thermonuclear fusion or invent other more efficient ways to obtain energy than collecting starlight.

Based on this, the authors suggest that an alien civilization can survive and achieve a high level of development using only a portion of the total amount of energy that their home star produces.

Therefore, aliens most likely will not seek to constantly expand their presence throughout the galaxy. Aliens may colonize their planetary system and possibly a nearby planetary system. Therefore, galaxy-wide civilizations may not exist, scientists say.