To clarify what the article does say but many commenters are missing— they are looking for signs of a civilization so advanced that they have not only colonized their whole galaxy, but are also exploiting most of the energy from all of the stars in their galaxy, as revealed by dissipated heat energy. This isn’t a search for life like we have here on Earth but for a theoretically super-advanced alien civilization.
What makes them so sure an alien civilization will evolve like this though?
That is how we see ourselves evolving, but what if on their planet or solar system they have the elements and materials so exotic to us it would seem like magic? Maybe some kind of element that naturally repels gravity for example?
Well yeah there wouldn't be anything. The light, radio waves, whatever would be from millions of years ago . That's not to say there is not something over there now this very moment. But then again what is time? Would now be the same as now a million light-years away?
But isn't the light and energy we see from these galaxies from billions of years ago... when they likely would be as advanced as we are - at most? But by now, they could have done all sorts of things that we still won't observe for hundreds of millions of years if not billions.
I really don’t understand this theory of “exploiting/using a star’s energy”... why does this concept occur so often in the science literature? Just because one scientist once (Kardashev) made a projection that certain “level” civilizations would use a certain number of stars for power is ridiculously specific and taken way too literally. We should assume that an advanced civilization could create nearly infinite energy (by our standards) seemingly “out of thin air” by means we cant even comprehend yet. To me its a flawed theory simply by its nature that it js a very human idea to just build a giant “thing” around a star to capture its energy - not necessarily something any super advanced alien civilization would do or would need to do.
Share & discuss informative content on: * Astrophysics * Cosmology * Space Exploration * Planetary Science * Astrobiology