Alien Civilizations

The late Carl Sagan once asked the following question:

“What does it mean for a civilization to be a million years old? We have had radio telescopes and spaceships for a few decades; our technical civilization is a few hundred years old… an advanced civilization millions of years old is as much beyond us as we are beyond a bush baby or a macaque.” - Carl Sagan

This question is interestingly discussed in an article by Michio Kaku, which I stumbled upon today. A pretty interesting read, and quite a coincidence that I stumble upon it the day after I watched ‘Contact’, two days after I talked with Ignas about extra solar planets and a month after I read ‘Time’, a book by Stephen Baxter that also tells about the ways civilizations could survive in the millions, billions, trillions and zillions of years to come…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 28th, 2005 at 17:37 and is filed under Webbery, Science & Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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    Tijl Kindt aka Quicky - HeadshotTijl Kindt
    Netherlands
    Hey there :), welcome to my homepage/blog. Named after Tijl Uilenspiegel, I'm a 22-year-old Belgian astronomy student, also known as Quicky, living in the Netherlands. In my free time I enjoy spending my time with movies, my computer, photography and chatting with friends all over the world. My main characteristics are probably... More »

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One Response to “Alien Civilizations”

  1. Stone2065 says:

    Here’s a scary thought for you… let’s say we use our “uberscope” and see an extra-solar planet. Let’s say we see that they show signs of civilization (lights on the dark side, etc. Orbiting satellites, etc.). BUT… they are say 200 light years away. That means that we are looking 200 years in their past. Who knows what’s there now? The planet could have blown up, they could have all migrated, who knows? Also, as an added thought, if you do the math, statistically speaking, there should be hundreds, if not thousands (I’m being VERY pessimistic here. The actual numbers should be in the millions) of civilizations out in just our galaxy alone, not to mention the great uncounted galaxies out there.

    Food for thought…

    July 17th, 2006 at 18:58