Physicists call it the Fermi paradox, after the Italian Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi, who pointed out in 1950 the conflict between and the conspicuous lack of aliens who have come to visit.
enough time to look.
Using a computer simulation of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, eight intergalactic probes and launch them.
Each probe would send out eight more mini-probes to look for habitable planets.
the "galactic habitable zone" of the Milky Way, where solar systems have the right elements to form life-sustaining planets.
at a tenth of the speed of light, or 30,000 kilometres a second, it would take 10 billion years, roughly half the age of the universe, to explore 4 per cent of the galaxy.
His study is reported in the them across the galaxy in two weeks, it's still going to take millions of years to find us," Mr Bjork said. "There are so many stars in the galaxy that probably life could exist elsewhere, but will we ever get in contact with them? Not in our lifetime.
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