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MuchJuice7329 t1_iu1wpki wrote

Reply to comment by Islanduniverse in Astronomers have outlined how the JWST may be able to detect the biosignatures of extraterrestrial life in Earth sized planets orbiting the 15 nearest White Dwarf stars. by lughnasadh

If that were in this galaxy, wouldn't we know about it by now?

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rytl4847 t1_iu3hl47 wrote

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi paradox

That's a topic of a lot of interesting debate/discussion. Because we haven't been able to explore much of anything in detail yet there just isn't much data to go on. It's been pointed out that an advanced civilization would likely send satellites to other star systems to transmit data back to them long before they'd ever consider visiting (if visiting is even possible). We don't yet even have the technology to scan our own solar system for such satellites. I don't believe it is the case but we can't actually prove one way or another yet if there are any alien satellites surveiling us currently.

We can't see other star systems clearly enough to have any idea what's going on out there. There's so much we just do not know. And that's why the project in the article is interesting. It's a first step in scanning the atmospheres of exoplanets for chemicals that we think only come about from life.

To drive the point home even further, the first exoplanets were discovered only 30 years ago. Before then there was debate about whether our star having planets was unusual or not. Think about that. We're only 30 years after the first detection of a planet outside of our solar system! We are just at the very beginning of looking out into the galaxy.

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Islanduniverse t1_iu1ylxy wrote

Maybe they don’t want us to know?

Also, just to be clear, I don’t actually believe any of this to be the case. I’m speaking hypothetically.

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