The oldest continents in our galaxy may have arisen 5 billion years before Earth’s, new research suggests — and that means there may be multiple worlds in the Milky Way harboring alien life even more advanced than our own.

Astrobiologists think a planet needs to have certain features to support life: oxygen in its atmosphere, something to shield organisms from dangerous radiation and liquid water, for a start. Although big land masses aren’t strictly necessary for living things to emerge, Earth’s history shows that they’re important for life to thrive and exist for long periods of time. So, if an exoplanet had continents before Earth, it follows that there might be older, more advanced life on that world.

This line of thought led Jane Greaves, an astronomer at Cardiff University astronomer in the U.K., to answer the question: When did the first continents appear on a planet in our galaxy? Turns out, two exoplanets’ continents — and perhaps life — may have arisen four to five billion years before Earth’s.

If life on another planet had a five-billion-year head start, it “could potentially host life more evolved than us,” Greaves wrote in a study, published in the September issue of the journal Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society.

  • Wogi@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    1 year ago

    Habitable for life, and intelligent life necessarily developing are two different things.

    Also 5 billion years is enough time to conquer the galaxy and go extinct multiple times over.

    • JeffKerman1999@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I guess we should still find something artificial somewhere, no? Some red star with a different colour spectrum or something

      • Wogi@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Only if intelligence is common, so far we have no reason to believe it is.

        Not only that, we have very little reason to believe life exists anywhere outside the earth, other than it would be really weird if it only happened once.