Invisible Probes Sent By Unknown Civilisations Could Already Be In Our Solar System

Researchers from Edinburgh University analysed how a ’fleet’ of probes could travel through space

Alien probes would only need to travel at one tenth of the speed of light in order to explore every part of our galaxy

Scottish mathematicians warn that alien probes are so hi-tech we probably can’t detect them

Their theory shows that it is mathematically possible for alien probes to have already arrived

Scottish mathematicians believe that ’self replicating’ robotic space probes sent by alien civilisations could already be in our solar system.

The University of Edinburgh study warns that the probes are probably so hi-tech they appear invisible to us as we don’t have technology advanced enough to detect them.

While our Voyager probe has just reached the edge of our solar system, older and more technologically advanced civilisations could have launched similar probes years before us that are already here.

Mathematicians Duncan Forgan and Arwen Nicholson believe that alien races could have sent probes that ’slingshot’ round stars using their gravity to cover ground quickly, Yahoo! News reported.

The researchers analysed how a ’fleet’ of probes could travel through space in a paper published in the International Journal of Astrobiology.

They said probes that ’self replicate’ and build new versions of themselves from dust and gas while traveling through space, could be in our solar system already.

Dr Forgan thinks that as we have not seen any of these probes could mean that we are alone in our galaxy.

He said: ’The fact we haven’t seen probes of this type makes it difficult to believe that probe building civilisations have existed in the Milky Way in the last few million years.’

The mathematicians calculated that alien probes would only need to travel at 10 per cent of the speed of light in order to explore every part of our galaxy within 10 million years.

They think that the probes can use ’slingshot manoeuvres’ around stars to increase their velocity by using energy from the star’s motion around the galactic centre.

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