Earth and civilization as we know it has come a long way in the past 200,000 years and has experienced a multitude of changes in that time. The human species has only existed for a mere 0.0015% of the immense 13.7 billion year age of the universe. However, humanity has conquered some of the most daunting tasks in that time period. They've come from hunting and gathering in the fields of Africa, colonizing the entire planet in a time period that is relatively a blink of an eye on the cosmic level. Some of the greatest minds ever exist have helped push modern civilization forward and achieve goals that were once thought to be impossible. In just the past 150 years, we have gone from being stuck to the Earth's soil to lending to our closest cosmic neighbor the moon.
Humanity's success is nothing sort of spectacular but on the universal scale, we may be rather insignificant. What would happen if we met an advanced alien species with technology more advanced than we could ever imagine?
In 1964, a Soviet astronomer by the name of Nikolai Kardashev introduced the hypothetical scale that can be used to measure the level of a potential civilization of technological advancement based on the amount of energy this civilization can produce. And now it is known as the Kardashev scale.
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The scale has three traditional types but many extensions of modifications to the scales and proposed since its creation. The scale is logarithmic. Meaning as we go on the amount the power of the civilization has is much much more substantial. In 1964, Kardashev has defined the three base levels of civilization based on the power available to them.
Type I - The Planetary Civilization
Yes, I know. Humans can't even fit into the lowest level of the advanced civilization. Rather than fitting into a Type I civilization, we humans lined one of the extended types of civilizations, Type Zero. You see, when this scale was proposed, famous astronomer Nashville physicist Carl Sagan produced a formula to define a certain hypothetical civilization to Kardashev rating.
This is that formula.
K represents a hypothetical civilizations Kardashev rating while P represents the amount of power the civilization uses in watts.
The proposed Type 0 Civilization will control approximately 1 Megawatt or 1 million Watts of power which is miniscule compared to the amount of power we use on a daily basis. In 2015 alone, the total world energy consumption 17.35 Terawatts. Plugging this number into P and cranking out the numbers at Kardashev rating as a civilization will be approximately that to Type 0.72. Even as a civilization with 7 billion humans on our planet. 12 of which them adventure to the moon with spacecraft spent billions of miles into the abyss of interstellar space complains to colonize Mars in the near future, we still only score a measly 0.72 of the Kardashev scale.
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According to Carl Sagan, humanity is going through a phase of technical adolescence, typical of a civilization about to integrate the Type I Kardashev scale. Michio Kaku, another brilliant theoretical physicist suggests that humans may attain Type I status in the next 100 to 200years. Type II status in perhaps next few thousand years and Type III status in 100,000 to 1 million years. This really goes to show the truly immense timescales it would take to advance to the next type of civilization. However, we are heading towards becoming a Type I civilization in the next couple of hundred years or so. And this is a huge step for Humanity.
As a Type I civilization, we would have complete control over our own planet. Perhaps, we could influence the weather change, the geological makeup of our own planet and much much more. However, even this amount of power is tiny compared to the next type of Civilization
Type II - Stellar Civilization
Type II civilizations also referred to as a Stellar civilization can control the total energy of its host star and transfer the energy throughout the entire solar system. One popular hypothesized device to use to harness the entire energy output of Type II civilization so star is called Dyson structures. You may have seen these before as they are rather popular in science fiction. The name was coined by Freeman Dyson and it is essentially a system of orbiting solar power satellites. Basically, it's an insanely massive hollow sphere built around a civilization so star tune you'll call of the energy from it.
Another rather exotic idea to harness energy for a Type II civilization would be to seed a stellar mass. For example, a star into a nearby black hole and collect the photons emitted by the accretion disk. Now, how a civilization could somehow deposit a star into a black hole is beyond me. What it is the means of energy nonetheless?
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A Type II civilization would not only build these supermassive structures but would control and live within them. They would control every single planet in their solar system, mine the asteroids at their leisure and essentially do whatever they want inside the solar neighborhood. The amount of powered civilization would have is remarkable but is nothing when compared to a Type III civilization.
Type III - Galactic Civilization
The Type III civilization also referred to as a Galactic civilization can control the total energy of its entire host galaxy. The amount of power the civilization would have is truly frightening and its order in the realm of science fiction.
This civilization would function extremely similar to the way Type II civilization work. It would harness the power of stars, mine planets and asteroids and so on but not only for one star but for billions of stars. A civilization such as this would use planets and solar systems like legos building and de-constructing planets to build up their empire elsewhere in the galaxy. The galaxy would seemingly become their playground and everything they do and use is merely a toy.
Harnessing the energy of quasars would be like hitting the lottery for them. The supermassive black hole, the center of their galaxy could be used as an energy source for a Type III civilization. Galactic real-estate would become a reality with Planet, Stars or even complete solar systems being auctioned off by some supreme leader. Interestingly enough, this hypothetical galaxy may not even be noticeable if such a civilization did exist. All of the energy from these dollars would be felled and used for whatever the civilization may need. This means all the starlight, gas and element in an entire galaxy would become like your kitchen pantry. If all of the matter and their entire galaxy was exploded for energy, an outside observer would view the galaxy to be completely invisible. It would appear as if there was a hole in the galaxy or if they have colonized the entire galaxy, perhaps, nothing at all.
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Scientists Have Found Source of Mysterious Sounds from Space
There is a place in space known as the great void. At nearly 330 million light years in diameter, the great void is one of the largest known voids in the entire universe and is commonly referred to as a Supervoid. This region of space is seemingly devoid of life in galaxies as we know it. A region of space with such a massive size as the great void contained, scientists estimate there should be at least, 2000 galaxies in stereo space. But today, their volume in 60 galaxies that have been discovered in the great void. This is a mere 3% of the amounts of galaxies that should occupy an area this large. So where are they? It to be Type III civilizations completely dominating an entire region of space milking a 330 million Lightyear wide region for resources.
Leave your thoughts in the comments below and I'll be sure to respond to them as quickly as I can.
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