Curtains Black Silver

50 solutions to the Fermi Paradox (29 th solution): The cloudy skies are common

Nightfall (Nightfall , 1941) is a short story by Isaac Asimov. Considered one of the best in the history of the genre of science fiction, tells the story scientists on the planet Lagash, belonging to a solar system consisting of six stars. Physicists of the world impossible to have recently discovered the law of universal gravitation and she is able to predict the position of any of its six suns, and deduce the existence of a moon that orbits of Lagash. Obviously, this is not visible in the sky because of the eternal light that bathes the entire planet. Asimov

masterfully tells what happens in Lagash when an unusual alignment of the six suns and the moon and an eclipse lagashianos provide, for the first time, the night sky.

astronomers a world it would find it extremely difficult to develop what we call astronomy. Because of its six stars light permanently hidden other celestial bodies, would not know about the existence of other celestial bodies, they could not find other planets and stars. Historically, on Earth, the development of physics has depended critically on whether they tried to explain the orbits of other planets. How have done it without a clear view of the night sky? Lagashiana civilizations as may be superior to ours, have developed much more advanced technologies, but may not even try to contact us because simply would have no idea of \u200b\u200bour existence.

Although the situation described by Asimov is highly unlikely, we can think of many other cases where the physical conditions of an alien civilization could prevent the development of the notion of the existence of intelligent beings on other worlds. What if the planets were common covered with thick clouds? Maybe out there there are thousands of CETs but locked under dense cloudy atmosphere or, alternatively, very close to the galactic centers, where the sky lights up permanently, or in any other planetary environment that could present insurmountable difficulties for astronomy. "It would explain that the Fermi paradox ? Is it conceivable that the Earth is the only planet with the possibility of clear skies?