Elon Musk shares chilling consequence for humanity if ‘there are no aliens’
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Elon Musk has delivered a chilling prospect for humanity if indeed there are no aliens out there after all.
The Tesla and Twitter CEO was discussing the Fermi Paradox, named after Enrico Fermi who reasoned that if there were aliens out there we should probably know about them by now.
Fermi reckoned aliens should have already presented themselves to us because our solar system is just 4.5billion years old, which is young compared to some parts of the galaxy which are as old as 13.8billion years.
READ MORE: Humanity 'can't handle' aliens claims politician who 'has access to' UFO footage
This means that, because in theory interstellar travel could be achieved with enough time put in, we should already have had a visit from aliens from these older galaxies.
This paradox has clearly been on Musk's mind as he took to his social media platform to share a humbling thought.
“The scariest answer to the Fermi Paradox is that there are no aliens at all,” he said. “[Then] we are the only tiny candle of consciousness in an abyss of darkness.”
Musk’s sobering musings were picked up by another big name in the space world – although they’re known for their academic research rather than their multi-billion dollar space programme.
Professor Brian Cox, of the University of Manchester and BBC science documentaries, left a comment in agreement with Musk.
“This is my default position and I think it’s a useful assumption – because even if there is a slim chance it’s true (and we may well never know) then it should focus our collective minds on the task in hand – which is to avoid f****** it up,” he said.
All this existential doom was then brought further into focus when one fan commented: “Could an explanation be that any civilisation advanced enough to be detectable, makes itself extinct quickly enough that the probability of overlap in time is too small?”
To this, Prof Cox replied: “Yes. And I think we are on that path sadly! Our job is to avoid this fate.”
He also reckoned it would be unlikely that we found any life beyond microbes in our own Solar System.
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