Why haven’t we made contact with aliens? Space. But wait 1,500 years from now

A new study regarding alien contact proposes that humans won’t communicate with alien civilizations until 1,500 years from now. Cornell University student, Evan Solomonides, and professor Yervant Terzian presented a paper on Tuesday at an American Astronomical Society conference.

“We haven’t heard from aliens yet, as space is a big place. But that doesn’t mean no one is out there,” said Solomonides. “Until then, it is possible that we appear to be alone — even if we are not,” and “If we stop listening or looking, we may miss the signals,” he also said in a statement. “So we should keep looking.”

Solomonides reached his estimate first by sourcing two arguments, the Fermi paradox and Copernicus’ principle of mediocrity.

The Fermi paradox examines the contradiction between lack of evidence and high probability estimates of co-existing alien civilizations. Copernicus’ principle of mediocrity essentially states that our galaxy isn’t the center of the universe.

Human civilization has been discharging television broadcasts and radio signals into space for decades and has reached every star within 80 light years from our Sun. In fact, NASA’s Kepler mission, these frequencies have made contact with 2,326 confirmed exoplanets. And all we’ve received is empty static. “We have reached so many stars and planets, surely we should have reached somebody by now, and in turn been reached,” Solomonides said.

The problem is simple: space. Solomonides surmises the reason why we haven’t made contact is because the universe is so vast. Eighty years isn’t that long, and we’ve only pinpointed about 0.125 percent of our Milky Way.

Astronomers insist that we should leave enough time to reach half of all the solar systems in the Milky Way. Within this timeframe, there might be a small sample of intelligent life capable of deciphering and communicating to our messages.