Fermi's Question: Where Are They?

Back in the days, when Orson Welles was scaring the wits out of most about everybody with a Martian Invasion. Enrico Fermi asked his buddies at Chicago. Where are they? Meaning if we were here, why did we seem to be alone?

"Most astronomers today believe that one of the most plausible reasons we have yet to detect intelligent life in the universe is due to the deadly effects of local supernova explosions that wipe out all life in a given region of a galaxy.While there is, on average, only one supernova per galaxy per century, there is something on the order of 100 billion galaxies in the observable Universe. Taking 10 billion years for the age of the Universe (it's actually 13.7 billion, but stars didn't form for the first few hundred million), Dr. Richard Mushotzky of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, derived a figure of 1 billion supernovae per year, or 30 supernovae per second in the observable Universe!"

"It isn't known if every hypernova is associated with a GRB. However, astronomers estimate only about one out of 100,000 supernovae produce a hypernova. This works out to about one gamma-ray burst per day, which is in fact what is observed."

"What is almost certain is that the core of the star involved in a given hypernova is massive enough to collapse into a black hole (rather than a neutron star). So every GRB detected is also the "birth cry" of a new black hole."
Taken from.

The Daily Galaxy

Now we know, their planets got sterilized.

Emeritus Professor Stephen Hawking was giving lectures, or at least telling journalists, about this answer to Fermi's question, a few weeks back.

It sounds good to me. We are alone, because we are lucky.

Actually the process Hawking was popularizing was about big rocks hitting us from out there, far in space.

How long will we be lucky? That is my question.

Here in Chilpancingo, a group of us are looking for evidence for an affirmative answer to Fermi's question. They are here.

Actually I do not believe they are, but I am not the one that is going to stop my friends from looking. Maybe they find Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and who knows what else.

This is fun. Until it isn't, and we see that ominous cosmic ray, or big rock, coming to get us, as very likely many other civilizations were taken down.