Newresearchpublished in Scientific Reports offers a potential fix via the addition of two new factors.
This adjustment, however, significantly reduces the value of N in the Drake Equation.
According to the new study, plate tectonics are crucial for developing complex life and advanced civilizations.
The Sombrero Galaxy.Image: NASA/Hubble
Earths plate movements create diverse habitats, recycle nutrients, and regulate climateall vital for life.
Complex civilizations, they write, are unlikely to emerge in strictly ocean-based environments.
Of those, only about half are big enough and have enough gravity to support plate tectonics.
To put that into perspective, its like finding just two suitable planets out of every 1,000.
This could be done by remote sensing of exoplanets.
This would help explain why we havent detected any signals from other civilizations yet.
Since we havent found any, this old estimate seems wrong, Gerya said.
Fermi Paradox solved?
They found that Earths switch to modern plate tectonics sped up the evolution of complex species.
Interestingly, Ward and Brownlee were likewise fixated on plate tectonics as a factor.
Yet we see no evidence for this.
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