What if astronomers cannot find anything in future outer planetary livability and bio -imzes?
Using advanced statistical modeling, ETH Zurich, SETI Institute, University of Roma ‘Tor Vergata’ and Belgrade University, a team of researchers, should observe and understand how many mystery astronomers declare that life is widespread or rare beyond Earth.
Future telescopes will explore mild, terrestrial outer planets to predict the frequency of livable or established worlds. Anger et al.. In particular, in case of an empty result (ie, no detection), it aims to determine the minimum number of planets required to achieve statistically significant conclusions. Painting Loan: Sci.News.
In science, sometimes, not finding anything can give important information.
When scientists seek life on the outer planets, they often focus on certain characteristics such as water symptoms that can show biological activity or gases such as oxygen and methane.
But what if scientists cannot find any of these features? Can we still learn something meaningful about how common life can be in the universe?
Eth Zurich and Set, a researcher from the Institute. Daniel Angerhausen said, “Even a single positive detection would change everything – but until then, we have to make sure we’ve learned as much as we can’t find,” Daniel Angerhausen said.
The new study shows that if scientists are studying 40-80 planets and they cannot find signs of life, less than 10-20% of similar planets can conclude that they can conclude that they have life.
However, this depends largely how sure we are about each observation.
Such a finding will enable scientists to set a meaningful upper limit on the prevalence of life in the universe, which has not been possible to date.
Also, if only 10% of the planets in the Milky Way have a lifestyle, this can still be 10 billion planets or more.
“This kind of conclusion would be a turning point, Dr. Dr. said. Angerhausen.
“Even if we cannot find life, we will be able to measure how much rare or widespread planets with biosignatures can be finally detected.”
Findings have direct effects on NASA approaching tasks such as the Habitable World Observatory (HWO) and the Great Interferometer (Life) led by European.
These tasks will examine the atmosphere of the planets for water, oxygen and even more complex biosignaturial symptoms and examine dozens of soil -like planets.
According to the study, the number of planets observed will be large enough to have significant conclusions about livability and the prevalence of life in our Galactic neighborhood.
However, the study also shows that even with advanced tools, these questionnaires should carefully take into account the uncertainties and prejudices and to measure them to measure them in order to make their results statistically significant.
An important idea from the study is that uncertainties in individual observations – such as false negatives – can significantly affect the consequences.
“It’s not just about how many planets we’ve observed, but about how we can see what we’re looking for or how we can be sure when we don’t see.” Angerhausen.
“If we are not careful and we are extremely confident in our ability to define life, even a major survey can lead to misleading consequences.”
. to work It looks today Astronomical magazine.
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Daniel angerhausen et al.. 2025. What if we can’t find anything? Bayes analysis of Null’s statistical knowledge results in future external planetary livability and biosignatur research. Aja 169, 238; doi: 10.3847/1538-3881/adb96d
