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Space
Space
Science
Keith Cooper

The great silence: Just 4 in 10,000 galaxies may host intelligent aliens

The Allen Telescope Array in Northern California is dedicated to astronomical observations and a simultaneous search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).

Alien life capable of communicating across interstellar space might not be able to evolve if its home planet doesn't possess plate tectonics, not to mention just the right amount of water and dry land.

Plate tectonics are absolutely essential if complex life is to evolve, argue Robert Stern of the University of Texas at Dallas and Taras Gerya of ETH Zurich in Switzerland. On Earth, complex multicellular life appeared during a period known as the Cambrian explosion, 539 million years ago.

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