Which Galaxies Are Best For Intelligent Extraterrestrial Life?

Cynthia McKanzie – MessageToEagle.com – The Universe is so vast it is hard to imagine we are the only intelligent species out there. Currently, we know there four distinct types of galaxies: elliptical, spiral, spiral barred and irregular. Although there are different types, we also learned that each galaxy contains the same elements, but these are arranged differently for each type.

Which one of these galaxies could be the best candidate for intelligent extraterrestrial life?

An astrophysicist at the University of Arkansas studied this question and it seems giant elliptical galaxies are not as likely as previously thought to be cradles of technological civilizations such as our own.

The new study is a bit controversial because it contradicts a previous study that theorized giant elliptical galaxies would be 10,000 times more likely than spiral disk galaxies such as the Milky Way to harbor planets that could nurture advanced, technological civilizations.

Scientists have previously argued in 2015 that the increased likelihood would be because giant elliptical galaxies hold many more stars and have low rates of potentially lethal supernovae.

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However Daniel Whitmire, a retired professor of astrophysics who is an instructor in the U of A Department of Mathematical Sciences is of a different opinion, He believes that the 2015 study contradicts a statistical rule called the principle of mediocrity, also known as the Copernican Principle, which states that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, an object or some property of an object should be considered typical of its class rather than atypical.

Historically, the principle has been employed several times to predict new physical phenomena, such as when Sir Isaac Newton calculated the approximate distance to the star Sirius by assuming that the sun is a typical star and then comparing the relative brightness of the two.

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“The 2015 paper had a serious problem with the principle of mediocrity,” said Whitmire. “In other words, why don’t we find ourselves living in a large elliptical galaxy? To me this raised a red flag. Any time you find yourself as an outlier, i.e. atypical, then that is a problem for the principle of mediocrity.”

He also had to show that most stars and therefore planets reside in large elliptical galaxies in order to nail down his argument that the earlier paper violated the principle of mediocrity.

According to the principle of mediocrity, Earth and its resident technological society should be typical, not atypical, of planets with technological civilizations elsewhere in the universe. That means that its location in a spiral-shaped disk galaxy should also be typical. But the 2015 paper suggests the opposite, that most habitable planets would not be located in galaxies similar to ours, but rather in large, spherical-shaped elliptical galaxies.

In his paper, Whitmire suggests a reason why large elliptical galaxies may not be cradles of life: They were awash in lethal radiation when they were younger and smaller, and they went through a series of quasar and star-burst supernovae events at that time.

“The evolution of elliptical galaxies is totally different than the Milky Way,” said Whitmire.

See also: Why Are Green Galaxies So Rare?

“These galaxies went through an early phase in which there is so much radiation that it would just completely have nuked any habitable planets in the galaxy and subsequently the star formation rate, and thus any new planets, went to essentially zero. There are no new stars forming and all the old stars have been irradiated and sterilized.”

If habitable planets hosting intelligent life are unlikely in large elliptical galaxies, where most stars and planets reside, then by default galaxies such as the Milky Way will be the primary sites of these civilizations, as expected by the principle of mediocrity, Whitmire said.

Written by Cynthia McKanzie. – MessageToEagle.com Staff