Scientists and space experts have always debated on the presence of alien life in the Universe. That being said, nevertheless, a study conducted recently by a group of researchers at the University of Oxford has revealed that the earthlings may be the only creature living in the Milky Way galaxy.
This study conducted by Toby Ord, Eric Drexler, and Anders Sandberg has raised serious doubts about the presence of extraterrestrial life. The researchers involved in the study analyzed the Fermi Paradox that indicates that a lot of time has passed for the aliens to colonize our Milky Way galaxy, however, that has not yet taken place.
The inferences of this new study are quite shocking. The study tells that there is a fifty-three percent probability that the creatures living on Earth are alone in the Milky Way galaxy with no extraterrestrial life present in it. Moreover, the same team of researchers also pointed out that there exists a forty percent probability that earthlings exist alone in the entire cosmos.
Although these observations and chances are good when they are conducted on the Earth’s surface, yet the real truth could never be known without physical exploration of new frontiers. No doubt there are many robots and spacecraft and brilliant telescopes for the exploration of the Milky Way galaxy, however, crewed missions could not most probably be achieved any time soon.
Unluckily lack of required funds and politics has not allowed human beings to explore space appropriately like it needs to be done. Every new administration fixes some targets to achieve but every president of the United States has a tenure of at most eight years whereas development for space exploration requires a much longer duration of time. This implies that every time there is a change in the administration, amendments are made in the ideas, targets, and budgets for space missions and NASA. This has reportedly slowed down the possible progress, which could be made over the last forty-five years since humans stepped on the lunar surface.
Walter Cunningham, the Apollo 7 astronaut, said in a statement, “Manned exploration is the most expensive space venture and, consequently, the most difficult for which to obtain political support.” Further, he added, “NASA’s budget is way too low.”
