A new study by scientists from Cambridge suggests that planets could be intelligent. While the idea of intelligence is usually linked to individuals, the concept of collective intelligence is not new—several organisms like viruses, plants, insects and even humans display collective intelligence behaviors.
The search for life and finding habitable planets beyond this solar system has intensified with the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. As more and more exoplanets are being discovered with unique properties, scientists begin to look for the ideal candidate to focus on. The big question is how to identify planets that have the potential for life.
Researchers from the University of Cambridge considered intelligence as a planetary process. The study scales out the different transition phases a planet would undergo as it becomes more 'intelligent.' They say technology and the impact species like humans have on a world are disruptive and critical in this process. These events "do not happen on a planet, but to a planet," the study says. The study concludes that understanding planet intelligence can serve issues like climate change and the search for extraterrestrial life.
Stages Of Planetary Intelligence And Uses
About three to four billion years ago, the planet's atmosphere was relatively toxic for life. But 2.6 billion years ago, something changed. A large community of cyanobacteria microorganisms began producing high oxygen levels through photosynthesis. The production was such that it changed the planet forever. This event is known as the Oxygen Revolution or the Great Oxidation Event and is what allowed life as people know it to flourish.
Researchers used these types of disruptive events that changed the world to set five stages for planetary intelligence. The first three are exclusively natural events, and the last two relate to a dominating intelligent species changing a planet and the technology it uses. Stages are first the Geosphere, then the Immature Biosphere, the Mature Biosphere, the Immature Technosphere and finally the Mature Technosphere. This vision sees all events as stages through which a planet needs to go to host intelligent life.
The study can be applied to Earth systems and exoplanet detection studies. It also serves climate change by studying effects like population growth and climate impacts. Finally, they assure that these stages serve projects that aim to detect signatures of technology in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). In simple words, for planets to host intelligent forms of life, the world itself must have an advanced intelligence stage and must have undergone all the processes necessary for it to form.
Source: Phys