FERMI PARADOX

The Fermi Paradox seeks to answer the question of where the aliens are. Given
that our star and Earth are part of a young planetary system compared to the
rest of the universe and that interstellar travel might be fairly easy to achieve
the theory says that Earth should have been visited by aliens already.
As the story goes, Enrico Fermi (an Italian physicist) first came out with the
theory with a casual lunchtime remark in 1950. The implications, however, have
had extraterrestrial researchers scratching their heads in the decades since.
"Fermi realized that any civilization with a modest amount of rocket technology
and an immodest amount of imperial incentive could rapidly colonize the entire
galaxy," the Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) said on its website.
"Within ten million years, every star system could be brought under the wing of
empire. Ten million years may sound long, but in fact it's quite short compared
with the age of the galaxy, which is roughly ten thousand million years.
Colonization of the Milky Way should be a quick exercise."
Plentiful planets
It is true that the universe is incredibly vast and old. One estimate says the
universe spans 92 billion light-years in diameter (while growing faster and
faster). Separate measurements indicate it is about 13.82 billion light-years old.
At first blush, this would give alien civilizations plenty of time to propagate, but
then they would have a cosmic distance barrier to cross before getting too far
into space.
The sheer number of planets that we have found outside of our solar system,
however, indicates that life could be plentiful. A November 2013 study using
data from the Kepler Space Telescope suggested that one in five sun-like stars
has an Earth-size planet orbiting in the habitable region of its star, the zone
where liquid water would be possible. That zone is not necessarily an indication
of life, as other factors, such as the planet's atmosphere, come into play. Further,
"life" could encompass anything from bacteria to starship-sailing
extraterrestrials.
A few months later, Kepler scientists released a "planet bonanza" of 715 newly
discovered worlds, pioneering a new technique called "verification by
multiplicity." The theory essentially postulates that a star that appears to have
multiple objects crossing its face or tugging at it would have planets, as opposed
to stars. (A multiple star system at such close proximity would destabilize over
time, the technique postulates.) Using this will accelerate the pace of exoplanet
discovery, NASA said in 2014.
Our understanding of astrobiology (life in the universe) is just at a beginning,
however. One challenge is these exoplanets are so far away that it is next to
impossible for us to send a probe out to look at them. Another obstacle is even
within our own solar system, we haven't eliminated all the possible locations for
life. We know from looking at Earth that microbes can survive in extreme
temperatures and environments, giving rise to theories that we could find
microbe-like life on Mars, the icy Jovian moon Europa, or perhaps Saturn's
Enceladus or Titan.

All of this together means that even within our own Milky Way Galaxy the
equivalent of the cosmic neighborhood there should be many Earth-size
planets in habitable zones that could host life. But what are the odds of these
worlds having starfarers in their bounds? [Countdown: 13 Ways to Hunt
Intelligent Aliens]
Life: plentiful, or rare?
The odds of intelligent life are estimated in the Drake Equation, which seeks to
figure out the number of civilizations in the Milky Way that seek to communicate
with each other. In the words of SETI, the equation (written as N = R* fp ne
fl fi fc L) has the following variables:
N = The number of civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy whose electromagnetic
emissions are detectable.
R* = The rate of formation of stars suitable for the development of intelligent
life.
fp = The fraction of those stars with planetary systems.
ne = The number of planets, per solar system, with an environment suitable for
life.
fl = The fraction of suitable planets on which life actually appears.
fi = The fraction of life bearing planets on which intelligent life emerges.
fc = The fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases
detectable signs of their existence into space.
L = The length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.
None of these values are known with any certainty right now, which makes
predictions difficult for astrobiologists and extraterrestrial communicators alike.
There is another possibility that would dampen the search for radio signals or
alien spacecraft, however: that there is no life in the universe besides our own.
While SETI's Frank Drake and others suggested there could be 10,000
civilizations seeking communications in the galaxy, a 2011 study later published
in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggested that Earth
could be a rare bird among planets.
It took at least 3.5 billion years for intelligent life to evolve, the theory by
Princeton University researchers David Spiegel and Edwin Turner said, which
indicates it takes a lot of time and luck for this to happen.
Other explanations for the Fermi paradox include extraterrestrials "spying" on
Earth, ignoring it altogether, visiting it before civilization arose, or visiting it in a
way that we can't detect.
The Fermi paradox or Fermi's paradox, named after Enrico Fermi, is the apparent
contradiction between the lack of evidence and high probability estimates, e.g.
those given by the Drake equation, for the existence of extraterrestrial
civilizations.[1] The basic points of the argument, made by physicists Enrico
Fermi (19011954) and Michael H. Hart (born 1932), are:

There are billions of stars in the galaxy that are similar to the Sun,[2][3] many of
which are billions of years older than Earth.[4][5]
With high probability, some of these stars will have Earth-like planets,[6][7] and
if the Earth is typical, some might develop intelligent life.
Some of these civilizations might develop interstellar travel, a step the Earth is
investigating now.
Even at the slow pace of currently envisioned interstellar travel, the Milky Way
galaxy could be completely traversed in about a million years.[8]