What If We're Not Late to the Party, but EARLY?

What if the universe seems empty for a strange reason. We may have shown up early, before almost anyone else.

Our universe is about fourteen billion years old, but it could keep forming stars for trillions of years.

Most stars that will ever exist haven't even been born yet. The most common, small red dwarfs, burn so slowly they shine for trillions of years, far longer than our Sun. Some scientists suspect the best conditions for life lie far in the future, around those stars, long after our Sun dies. By that measure, intelligent life appearing now, only fourteen billion years in, isn't arriving after the galaxy emptied out. It may be among the very first to show up.

If that's true, the silence isn't a graveyard. It's an empty theater before the show begins. We wouldn't be the last survivors of a crowded galaxy. We might be the ancient ones, the mysterious first civilization that everyone else wonders about, billions of years from now.

Follow The Cosmic Vault — the universe is stranger than you think.