Breakthrough Listen and the Fermi Paradox

Professor Stephen Hawking recently launched the Breakthrough Listen project which will be conducted to find intelligent alien life on another planet in our Galaxy, the Milky Way, or even in another Galaxy altogether.
http://www.space.com/29990-stephen-hawking-intelligent-alien-life-initiative.html

In my view this is a fantastic project. At the moment we have absolutely no evidence that any form of life exists in the Universe other than on Earth or its near environment.

The project involves scanning the skies to detect electro-magnetic radiation in the form of radio signals or laser beams which would have been transmitted by an alien and intelligent living being or a robot of such a being.

It is quite possible that the ten year project will pick up such a signal and be able to decode it. Picking up an alien radio signal may be our best chance to confirm that life exists elsewhere in the Milky Way. It is unlikely that a telescope such as Kepler will be able to resolve the signs of life on planets many light years away. It is equally unlikely that a satellite probe will find life on another planet or moon of our solar system within 10 years. However, Mars could be a candidate for such a discovery.

Yuri Milner who is financing the project has rightly pointed out that even if we do not discover alien life with the Breakthrough project then it does not mean that life does not exist elsewhere.

I am hoping that the project will be successful but I have my doubts that intelligent life is abundant in the Galaxy.

The renowned physicist Enrico Fermi surmised "our galaxy should be teeming with civilizations, but where are they? Why are they not here visiting us already? Why can't we see them? The Galaxy has been been in existence for billions of years surely we cannot be the only form of life that is intelligent? This is the Fermi paradox.

http://www.space.com/25325-fermi-paradox.html

So far we can only speculate that life exists in the rest of the Galaxy. It is quite possible, however, that some planets are teeming with life - just like the Earth. There are about 400 billion stars in our Galaxy so millions of them could support life on a planet or moon within their alien "solar system".

However, what are the chances of a life form on another planet evolving both the intelligence and the dexterity to make tools which can communicate across interstellar space and make space probes. Out of the millions of species that have ever survived on Earth only a small number would qualify as tool makers intelligent enough to make a radio set if they had survived. Homo Erectus and Homo Heidelbergensis are two but they went extinct. Neanderthal Man also had the potential but he could be part of our own species. Only one surviving species has been thrown up on Earth which has the intelligence and physical ability to design and build a radio set. Dolphins, Whales and other non-human primates display some form of intelligence but they do not have the manual dexterity to create complex tools. The chance of an intelligent species such as man evolving are probably millions to one against. Intelligence does not confer a particular ability to survive as a species. Cockroaches have survived for millions of years without any form of intelligence. The human genus has only existed for a couple of million or so years.

Planets which support life elsewhere in the Galaxy could face the same evolutionary predicament. Thousands or millions of species survive on a planet but none of them have both the intelligence and the dexterity to create tools. There may be billions of planets which can support life but only thousands which support intelligent life that can communicate across the Galaxy.

It will be interesting to note how human beings fare when they travel to Mars.  Whilst it may be physically possible to survive a trip it might be mentally very difficult. We cannot know how humans will deal with the isolation of both time and distance. Experiments have been done by isolating humans in submarines and laboratories for months on end and humans can survive on the international space station for similar periods. All of these humans have had an escape route and know that their isolation can be ended if it becomes too much of an ordeal. A trip to Mars is of a different order of isolation of even a trip to the Moon. Inter-planetary and inter-stellar space travel may not be possible for humans because of the isolation factor. The same could apply to intelligent aliens. Some of the stars which harbour intelligent life could be hundreds if not thousands of light years away; the magnitude of the isolation is daunting and a more advanced species than ours may have already given up  the idea of travelling to another star and may have resigned itself to just listening out for other forms of intelligent life. This does not mean that we should not try to find a distant radio signal across inter-stellar space even if we cannot visit the source.

The difficulty of communicating with other being is also a daunting task. The latest extra solar planet discovery, Kepler 452b, is 1,400 light years away. This planet is similar in size to Earth and it revolves  around a  star similar to our own in the "habitable zone". If there are intelligent beings on this planet and they are listening out for us then they will have to wait a long time to pick up the BBC news - more than a 1,000 years. If they send us a message back then they would have to wait 2,800 years for an answer, and that would be if we were confident enough and feel safe enough to reply. Communication with even a near stellar neighbour may be almost impossible because of the time difference, isolation and social difference.

This could be the resolution of the Fermi Paradox. There are too few fellow intelligent beings out there and they are too far away in terms of time and distance to maintain contact.

This does not mean that we should not satisfy our curiosity; it would be good to know that we are not alone and that life is not a single event limited to our own planet and star. If we do pick up a radio or laser signal from  an alien civilisation it would probably mean that our Galaxy has millions of planets and moons  that support life and that we should redouble our efforts to find it on Mars or a moon of  Jupiter or Saturn.

Let's hope Stephen Hawkings and Yuri Milner meet with success.