Geneva, Switzerland

The Laboratory of Statistical Biophysics at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) recently carried out research which hinted at the possibility of getting a hit on alien transmission in the next 60 years.

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The research, which has been published in the Astronomical Journal, came up with a new explanation for why scientists have till now failed to detect aliens.

"We've only been looking for 60 years," said biophysicist Claudio Grimaldi while speaking to Science Alert. "Earth could simply be in a bubble that just happens to be devoid of radio waves emitted by extraterrestrial life,” he added.

The scientist further stated that too much space remains to be scanned and that there is a possibility that not many alien transmissions have crossed paths with researchers.

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The scientist, however, emphasised that people need to remain patient. The biophysicist stated that more time, money and effort are required to scan and spot the traces of communications with the aliens out in the Universe.

He added that there is some debate over whether or not extraterrestrial intelligence's (SETI) search is worth the time, money and effort.

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The research model has revealed an assumption about the existence of at least one electromagnetic signal of technological origin in the Milky Way and the Earth is considered as a quiet bubble (or sponge pore) for at least six decades.

The scientist stated that if that is the situation, then according to the statistics, there are lesser than five electromagnetic emissions per century, which take place anywhere across our galaxy.

To explain it in another way, electromagnetic emissions are as common as supernovas inside the Milky Way, reported Science Alert. The scientist stated it may take us at least 60 years to get a hit on an alien transmission.

"We may have been unlucky in that we discovered how to use radio telescopes just as we were crossing a portion of space in which electromagnetic signals from other civilisations were absent," Claudio Grimaldi said.

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"To me, this hypothesis seems less extreme than assuming that we are constantly bombarded by signals from all sides but are, for some reason, unable to detect them,” he added.

He further stated that a lot of space remains to be covered in the search. Grimaldi suggested that the best way forward is to carry out commensal investigations which are finding signals in the data which is collected by the telescopes that are focused on different missions, and not use telescopes specifically to hunt for alien communications.

"The best strategy might be to adopt the SETI community's past approach of using data from other astrophysical studies - detecting radio emissions from other stars or galaxies - to see if they contain any technosignals and make that the standard practice," Grimaldi stated.

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