The known universe is home to at least two thousand billion galaxies like ours. Only in the Milky Way, there are between 100 and 400 billion stars, each of which potentially at the center of a planetary system. And although we still know little about exoplanets, there are Katherine potentially habitable. So if life on Earth was the result of very fortunate circumstances - and probably is - the numbers suggest that the cosmos is, in fact, full of inhabitants. Okay, but where is everybody?

The dilemma just explained - the Fermi Paradox - have ventured the minds of the most brilliant scientists of the last century, and possible solutions have emerged: some say that the aliens are "hibernate", or buried under crusts ice; those who argue are being blocked by obstacles of various kinds, and those who think they already existed, and we did not cross.

Simple and cynical. Now a Russian physicist, Alexander Berezin of the National Research University of Electronic Technology (MIET), has proposed a new hypothesis, published in draft form, still awaiting review, the journal arXiv. The possible explanation, dubbed "First in, last out" (something like "the first coming in is the last one out"), suggests that once a civilization gets to develop interstellar travel capabilities, inevitably to clear all the other, in its expansion efforts.

The grim solution does not necessarily imply the existence of malicious alien civilizations. Simply, such an advanced population to cross the boundaries of their star could not notice the existence of other life forms, because they are not interested in looking for them, in his race to conquer. "I would notice us, as a demolition team is not aware of an anthill while building a condominium, because no one has an incentive to protect them," writes the author.

There were terrestrial civilizations before our own?

From the conquerors. So we are ants, just waiting to be trampled? No. According Berezin, instead we own future destroyers of those worlds that seem to find. Human civilization could be the first to reach the skills to interstellar travel, and probably will be the last to disappear.

It is said that the destruction must be dealt with at the table. It could also come from uncontrolled development of a driving force, such as artificial intelligence evolution. And of the other civilizations we might not realize, though they fall into the restricted imagery we associate with the term alien.

As highlighted by Science Alert, it is a pretty terrific solution to the Fermi Paradox: in practice, we could be the winners of a deadly race we are unwittingly participating. Or, to put it as Andrew Masterson Cosmos: "We are the paradox solution", he made manifest.

In the video below (in English, with subtitles), find a simple explanation of the Fermi Paradox, and some possible solutions.

From Focus