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How can he feed his aliens advanced civilizations?. | Credit: Coneyl Jay through Getty Images
The burning of fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – drives humanity into the industrial revolution, processing civilization afterwards. Gasoline supplies many of the cars we drive; Coal and natural gases are central to global energy. But if the aliens were building their own society, would they have to go the same path as humanity, relying on fossil fuels to build their advanced civilization? Or can they find an alternative?
In order to build modern civilization, aliens will probably have to use a source of energy that is just as abundant as fossil fuels, said Lewis DartnelAstrobiologist and author of “”Knowledge: How to restore our world from scratch“(Penguin Press, 2014). It would be difficult for them to simply bypass the production of fossil fuels, he noted.
Dartnel painted a parallel with people: in the 18th century, the world entered the Industrial Revolution, embarking on what seemed to be an limitless source of energy. Coal burned longer and produced more energy than wood and charcoal.
“Before that, energy was the main restriction on how much you can do,” he said. “This would limit how much you can go and move things around, what you can build and what you can do.”
The question of whether people could bypass fossil fuels to reach alternative energy sources is “somewhat of a Chicken and egg dilemma“Dartnel told Live Science. For example, the production of solar panels requires siliconAnd the extraction and refinement of this element requires a significant amount of energy.
Related: How to turn oil into plastic?
The easiest way for intelligent aliens to create fuel would be to start burning things like humans until they can move to other energy sources. They might be able to harness the light of a star or the kinetic energy of the wind. But wind energy itself would not create the high temperatures needed for melting, forging and casting metals that will be needed for industrialization, Dartnel said.
Meanwhile, hydropower will only work if the planet has considerable amounts of available liquid that most planets we have found do not possess, added Set ShostakAstronomer and Director of the Institute for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Search (SETI).
Can other planets have fossil fuels?
Scientists have not yet found a planet with abundant oxygen in their atmosphere Traces of sums have been found Of Mars, Venus and the moon of Jupiter Europe. Oxygen is the main ingredient in the combustion of fossil fuels because it allows for combustion that releases the energy stored in coal, oil and gas.
Fossil fuels are created by life – they are the transformed remains of plants and animals that lived hundreds of millions of years ago. Dartnel suggested that Plate tectonics are a crucial part of the puzzle on how these life forms have emerged. “There is a reasonable reason to suspect that in order to have an intelligent life on the Earth -like planet, You must have a tectonon on the plates Adjust the climate for long periods of time, “he said.
A 2022 exploration Researchers at the University of Sydney report how the tectonic plates of the Earth move carbon between the deep earth and the surface, forming what they call “carbon conveyor”. This process is crucial for maintaining the Goldilocks climate on Earth, which makes the planet inhabited, according to the study. Moreover, the tectonics of the plates also lead to continental drift and the creation of conditions that produce large quantities of coal, fossil fuel, he added.
Coal, buried and transformed remains of ancient plants that have lived in marshy forests, take hundreds of millions of years. | Credit: Zaporizhia Vector via Shutterstock
To put it another way, the tectonics of the plates can help the path of life and create conditions to help it become fossil fuels; It can also create ideal living conditions that can become intelligent enough to use these fuels.
“In a sense, you get two for one,” Dartnel said. “If you have a planet with active slab tectonics, it regulates the climate that allows the development of the intelligent complex life.”
Scientists have And yet to find another planet with active slab tectonicsS Nor have they found fossil fuels in space. What they have However, there is evidence of the chemical building blocks of fossil fuels: hydrogen and carbon. Approximately 75% of the universe mass is made up of hydrogen, Shostak said. In addition, scientists have found a field of Liquid hydrocarbons on the moon of Saturn TitanS Intelligent aliens could, hypothetically, try to burn these elements to produce energy.
Human point of view
Linked mysteries
– How would we give instructions to the Earth’s aliens?
– What are we sent to aliens?
“What can aliens look like?”
Of course, aliens are not necessarily bound by the same restrictions as humans and our imagination often limits us to thinking about the human time line. “We are hard to predict what aliens can do,” Shostak told Live Science. It’s like asking Julius Caesar What did he think Romans will deal with oil in 2025 when they were only Using small amounts of lamp oilS “Julius will probably have some ideas, all based on Roman knowledge,” he said. “He would completely miss [mark]S You have to keep that in mind. “
Intelligent alien civilization can be nothing like what we expect, Shostak added. While aliens are likely to need an abundant source of energy to develop their civilization, who to say what form will take this energy? The answer can be beyond human understanding.