Month: May 2022

It is fan­tas­tic that the far­thest star detect­ed is so far away: 12.9 bil­lion light years.  As a result, it is not the first star born in the Uni­verse but it does pre­date the Sun by 7.9 bil­lion years.  Though this star is too short lived for life to evolve, but a dim­mer star formed at the same time might have been the loca­tion of the first life in the uni­verse.  If that life evolved into intel­li­gent civ­i­liza­tion with­in 5 bil­lion years (as it did here on Earth), that civ­i­liza­tion would be 2.9 bil­lion years old.  What kind of civ­i­liza­tion might it be?

Check out my arti­cle on the Kar­da­shev  scale to imag­ine the civ­i­liza­tion that might be so incred­i­bly old and asso­ci­at­ed with the far­thest star.  Could this end up being a class III galac­tic civ­i­liza­tion?  Maybe its only a class II stel­lar civ­i­liza­tion?  Or the civ­i­liza­tion might have died out before it reached class I.  The ques­tions abound regard­ing such a civilization.

Sci­ence and sci­ence fic­tion are inter­twined.  Sci­ence does not rule out the fan­tas­tic.  The uni­verse we live in works accord­ing to sci­ence, but I find it fantastic.