Advanced Extraterrestrial Civilizations – Their Technology And Capabilities: What Can They Achieve?

What kind of technology could we expect to find on an alien planet?

Cynthia McKanzie – MessageToEagle.com – “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, “Arthur C. Clarke once wrote a long time ago.

In this article we take a look at who could be out there and what kind of advanced technology they could posses.

“Soon, humanity may face an existential shock as the current list of a dozen Jupiter-sized extra-solar planets swells to hundreds of earth-sized planets, almost identical twins of our celestial homeland.

This may usher in a new era in our relationship with the universe: we will never see the night sky in the same way ever again, realizing that scientists may eventually compile an encyclopedia identifying the precise co-ordinates of perhaps hundreds of earth-like planets,” Dr. Michio Kaku said.

On these Earth-like planets there could be livings similar to us, or maybe totally different and perhaps even light years ahead of us when it comes to technology.

So, naturally we might wonder how advanced the physics of extraterrestrial civilizations could be.

Several scientists, among them Dr. Micho Kaku have debated how to classify extraterrestrial civilizations.

“Although it is impossible to predict the precise features of such advanced civilizations, their broad outlines can be analyzed using the laws of physics. No matter how many millions of years separate us from them, they still must obey the iron laws of physics, which are now advanced enough to explain everything from sub-atomic particles to the large-scale structure of the universe, through a staggering 43 orders of magnitude, “Dr. Kaku said.

How Can We Rank Extraterrestrial Civilizations?

How “alien” are extraterrestrial worlds?

Specifically, we can rank civilizations by their energy consumption, using the following principles:

1) The laws of thermodynamics. Even an advanced civilization is bound by the laws of thermodynamics, especially the Second Law, and can hence be ranked by the energy at their disposal.

2) The laws of stable matter. Baryonic matter (e.g. based on protons and neutrons) tends to clump into three large groupings: planets, stars and galaxies. (This is a well-defined by product of stellar and galactic evolution, thermonuclear fusion, etc.) Thus, their energy will also be based on three distinct types, and this places upper limits on their rate of energy consumption.

3) The laws of planetary evolution. Any advanced civilization must grow in energy consumption faster than the frequency of life-threatening catastrophes (e.g. meteor impacts, ice ages, supernovas, etc.). If they grow any slower, they are doomed to extinction. This places mathematical lower limits on the rate of growth of these civilizations.