Originally posted by: Hayabusa Rider
We have no evidence that an intelligent civilization exists outside our own. I've sometimes speculated that maybe they are self extinguishing. "Hey, look at this black hole I just made!--POOF!!"
Those gamma radiation bursts we occasionally see are just the EM puffs that were once planets; each one was where a brilliant scientist's last words were, "What could
possibly go wrong?":laugh:
A tiny black hole would be smaller than an atom nucleus, and would be no more massive than the particles which created it - they're talking about smashing together two protons to make a black hole. Calculate the gravitational attraction of two protons, and that'll be the attraction of the black hole. I wonder if its event horizon would cover a diameter that could encompass even a single wavelength of gamma radiation.
Most probable events to destroy a civilization, in my opinion, and not in order of probability:
- large-scale nuclear war, or perhaps similar war with antimatter-based weapons
-
severe environmental changes, such as massive outgassings from the mantle of a planet, or intense mass coronal ejections
- asteroid impact
- And maybe, just maybe, the galaxy acts like our local ecosystem does, with life forms or "forces" of some sort which prey on other galactic components. We have lions hunting gazelles, or cows eating grass - one life form preys on another. The galaxy may have similar powers at work, with each planetary system acting as a tiny component of a much larger system. Hell, galaxies "consume" one another sometimes, colliding and causing gravitational chaos for the associated star systems and structures. Maybe something like the ID4 aliens, only about 500x more advanced, something which preys on entire planets. The thin film of life is just like the candy coating on an M&M - it just makes the snack all the sweeter.