Aliens seeking to probe humans on Earth 'would face two major obstacles'

14 February 2024 , 09:44

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Are aliens attempting to make contact with Earth? (Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Aliens seeking to get in touch with humans on Earth would have two major obstacles to overcome, an expert has warned.

Debate over the existence of extraterrestrials continues to rumble on and possible sightings remain in the realms of conspiracy theorists. But many scientists have confessed a belief that there has to be some sort of alien life considering the size of the universe.

And at the same time as people on Earth wonder about aliens, it is possible that extraterrestrials are doing the same – should they exist. According to an expert, there are two main issues aliens would need to crack before they're able to probe us for information.

The first is physics and the second is engineering. Keeping in mind that we have no idea what alien life is like and how advanced it may be, assistant professor of materials science and engineering at University of California, United States, Scott McCormack pondered why we haven't seen aliens yet and what their tech might look like.

”If there are such things as space-faring civilizations, it is not beyond possibility that somewhere in those three billion or four billion years that somebody came through, or somebody sent probes," he told Popular Mechanics, reported the Daily Star. But he warned: “Anything going faster than light is science fiction right now because the laws of physics say that you can’t do that. Speed of light is as fast as you’re gonna go.”

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And on what the probe might look like and what it could be made of, he said: “Toughness is typically the ability of the material to absorb energy, and materials that are hard like diamonds tend to have a lower toughness.

“To resist these impacts, you want to have a material that’s going to have both high hardness to resist being deformed and high fracture toughness. 'What material could that be?'. I don’t think we have an answer yet.” He also claimed that sending a probe through space without knowing where exactly you're aiming for would be like searching for a “needle in a haystack” which would give both humans and aliens a “low” chance of ever finding each other.

Adam Cailler