early to the universe

Maybe someone a trillion years from now will read this.

An article written by Forbes further corroborated by an article from NASA propagates the ideology that planet Earth has emerged early in the life of the Universe. Scientists estimate the Universe is roughly 13.8 billion years old, but according to the articles over 90% of Earth-like planets that will ever exist have yet to be formed. The last star isn’t expected to burn out until 100 trillion years.

If the current expansion occurring within our universe continues, descendants clever enough about prolonging their existence could do so into the many trillions of years in the future.

I can’t help but ponder about the many intelligent civilizations cognizant of their nature and the universe that will arise after us. There is beauty and disaster in humanity’s early arrival. On one hand, we’re among the primary wave of intellectually sentient beings that will exist and there is something special about our place in the cosmos, whatever that may be.

On a less optimistic view… you and I will be missing a lot. Intelligent civilizations that are inevitably bound to have significant time to develop could help less developed ones. Beings in the future might not have to worry about inventing the wheel or engineering a dyson sphere, because some good ol’ aliens are there to help them. We can go down the rabbit hole when speculating, but its undeniable that there will be exponentially more opportunity with the crucial element of time and a more hospitable universe.

You and I are here in a stimulating time. We have the opportunity within the next few decades to significantly transform our capabilities and maybe even some of the civilizations that arise on another planet. Convincing our civilization to stop squabbling over different pigments of skin and to become efficient towards this goal seems to be the biggest obstacle, though.