IT COULD BE AS SIMPLE AS "REANALYZING PRIOR DATA."
It's
possible that a highly evolved alien culture has built a network of wormholes
throughout the universe, which humans might be able to detect.
While
it's a far-fetched notion, it has some scientists intrigued, according to a
recent BBC Science Focus article. For example, astrophysicist Fumio Abe of
Nagoya University told the publication that we may have already captured
evidence of such a network in existing observations — but lost them in the sea
of data — raising the intriguing possibility that reanalyzing old observations
could lead to a breakthrough in SETI.
"Detection
might be performed by reanalyzing prior data if the wormholes have throat radii
between 100 and ten million kilometres, are bound to our Galaxy, and are as
numerous as regular stars," Abe told Science Focus.
In
other words, it's an enticing notion that proposes another another approach to
determining whether or not humans are alone in the cosmos.
Wormholes
are theoretical tunnels with two ends at different points in time and space, to
put it simply. While they do not contradict Einstein's general theory of
relativity, we have no way of knowing if they could exist, let alone if a
sufficiently evolved society could produce them.
However,
a wormhole would require enormous quantities of energy to exist.
"Intrinsically
unstable, a wormhole would require'stuff' with repulsive gravity to keep each
mouth open, as well as energy equivalent to that released by a significant
fraction of the stars in a galaxy," according to Science Focus. "If
ETs have established a network of wormholes, it might be observable via
gravitational microlensing," the theory goes.
By
sensing how far exoplanets and stars bend light, that technology has already
been used to detect thousands of distant exoplanets and stars. To be clear,
whether it might be utilised to detect wormholes is an open subject.
Fortunately,
finding wormholes isn't our only option for finding extraterrestrial life.
Science Focus also mentioned the search for theoretical megastructures that
fully enclose a star to harness its energy, as well as atmospheric chemicals
linked to human pollution and ultra-thin reflective spacecraft known as light
sails, all of which could theoretically lead to the discovery of an
extraterrestrial civilization.
Wormholes
are a fascinating concept, especially because they could allow an alien
civilization — or perhaps ourselves — to traverse across enormous swaths of
space and time.
But,
for the time being, they're little more than an amusing thinking experiment.
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