The Kardashev Scale - Do Aliens Exist?
#10 If they did, what would they be like?
As a kid, the concept of space always fascinated me. I still remember the day when I was about 6 or 7 years old, the news of a shooting star (thoka chukka) on my grandfather’s radio excited me the most. Back in those days, we used to visit my grandparents in our village on every occasion we got. The whole village had gone crazy with the news, we were running on people’s terraces looking for it. Some said they saw it, but unfortunately, I didn’t. Since I never saw it before, didn’t know what it looked like or how to look for it. I just lied to the people there that I saw it to avoid embarrassment. 😅
Fast forward, 10 years later, I saw my first and only shooting star accidentally when I was admiring the night sky during a camping school trip. As the campsite was on a hill far away from any city or town, there was no light pollution or noise. It was pitch black, however, we could see each other well without any lights thanks to the Moon! We gathered around a campfire and people were reciting stories and cracking jokes at the teachers. That’s when I looked up suddenly and for a brief moment, I saw a shooting star breeze past my peripheral vision! 🌟
I’ve digressed, back to the topic at hand. There are over 2 trillion galaxies and over 20,000 quintillion stars surrounding our galaxy. It’s only rational to think that at least one of these stars has a habitable planet revolving around it with intelligent life. After all, we are living proof of that. If an alien civilisation does exist, what would they look like or how far advanced or behind would they be? Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev proposed a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy it is able to use, in 1964. This is also known as the Kardashev scale. According to this, there are 4 main types of civilisations with more types being added over the years as this scale kept evolving.
Type 1 Civilisation: A Type 1 Civilisation is able to use the available energy of their home planet. So, are we a Type 1 Civilisation? Not quite, we are about 0.75 on the scale and are closer to reaching Type 1 status. Experts estimate anywhere between 100 to 300 years from now we might achieve this feat. Provided we don’t make the planet inhabitable by then, in which case we will be extinct before we could reach a full Type 1.
Type 2 Civilisation: A Type 2 Civilisation is able to use the available energy of its star and planetary system. The next logical step for us after reaching Type 1 is to set up interplanetary bases, terraform and mine other planets or asteroids in our journey to become a Type 2 civilisation. Once we achieved these, our energy needs would increase exponentially and our final step would be to harness the complete power of the Sun.
Type 3 Civilisation: A Type 3 Civilisation is able to use the available energy of its galaxy. If this type of civilisation does exist, it would be so advanced than us currently that, they might look at us as too primitive to even interact with. In their eyes, we’d be as primitive as bacteria are to us. Their technology would be beyond our grasp, their physics might even be different than ours and they would have achieved light-speed travel.
Type 4 Civilisation: A Type 4 Civilisation is able to use the available energy of its galaxy as well as its neighbouring galaxies. These are the god-tier civilisations, which might not even consider our existence relevant. We can only hope that they don’t destroy us and are nice gods.
The scale doesn’t end here. Some consider that there are several other civilisations beyond this. A Type 5 civilisation’s influence exists across millions of galaxies and trillions of stars. Then there’s the ultimate Type Ω civilisation which might be able to control the entire universe or multiple universes and they might even be the creators of our universe.
Do Aliens Exist?
At least we can say safely that if Type 3 or beyond civilisations existed, they would have found us by now or maybe they did but just ignored us. Or maybe they don’t exist, because their space activity is hard to miss even with our current technology. If an alien race does exist it could be between 1.5 to Type 2 civilisation and might have just started looking around. We have not found a single piece of evidence so far, then again, we just started looking.
Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.
― Arthur C. Clarke
Do you think aliens exist? Do let me know in the comments below! Thank you for reading. If you find this article useful, like and share it with your friends. Keep smiling, stay safe and take care! 😊
~ Nithin
I like your analysis, subscribed for more content!
This is one of the topic (about space and extraterrestrial life) i always dont miss to read and you have written it very well bro..
I always wonder by looking at the sky and think what if somone from another star system is also looking up and thinking the same ... Like many, I strongly believe we are definitely not alone... and there is lot more beyond our imagination or what we could see with current technology...
And the shooting star incident, i have seen it too in my school days bro... Probably the same one we both were looking at and we both don't know each other's existence at that time :)