Why Intelligence May Be Extremely Rare in the Universe | With Fraser Cain @EventHorizonShow

Why Intelligence May Be Extremely Rare in the Universe | With Fraser Cain @EventHorizonShow

Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

In this episode of Event Horizon, John Michael Godier and Fraser Cain explore why the universe may be full of microbial life yet still nearly empty of advanced civilizations, and what the Fermi Paradox might reveal about the rarity of intelligence.

Fraser’s links
youtube.com/@frasercain
twitter.com/fcain
universetoday.com

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youtube.com/c/JohnMichaelGodier

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stellardrone.bandcamp.com
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FOOTAGE:
NASA
ESA/Hubble
ESO - M.Kornmesser
ESO - L.Calcada
ESO - Jose Francisco Salgado (josefrancisco.org)
NAOJ
University of Warwick
Goddard Visualization Studio
Langley Research Center
Pixabay

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$What Lies Beneath Ceres | Dr. Samuel Courville New evidence suggests that Ceres may still harbor subsurface brine, cryovolcanic activity, and internal heat sources capable of sustaining habitable environments. The discussion explores how radioactive decay, methanogenesis, and chemical energy could support life beneath its surface, what salt deposits reveal about ancient liquid water, and whether asteroids like Ceres could have delivered Earth’s oceans—and possibly life itself—featuring Dr. Samuel Courville with John Michael Godier. Links: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adt3283 https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-ceres-may-have-had-long-standing-energy-to-fuel-habitability/ https://www.seti.org/news/hidden-habitability-on-ceres-what-dawn-discovered-beneath-ceres-icy-crust/ 00:00 Intro 01:12 Why Ceres is stranger than expected 03:25 Radioactive decay and internal heating over billions of years 06:05 Could hydrothermal brines still exist beneath the surface? 08:45 Methane, CO₂, and chemical energy for microbial life 11:35 The “follow the salt” mystery and bright spots on Ceres 14:05 Evidence that briny liquids reached the surface 16:20 How Ceres differs from other asteroids and preserved its history 19:10 Links to carbonaceous chondrite meteorites and organic chemistry 22:15 Comparing Ceres to icy moons like Enceladus and Europa 25:00 Could small early worlds have spawned life? 28:05 Delivery of Earth’s water and the panspermia question 31:00 What Bennu and Ryugu reveal about parent bodies 33:15 The frost line, timing of formation, and habitability conditions 36:00 Impacts, fractures, and evidence of cryovolcanism 38:25 Why NASA sees Ceres as a sample-return priority 40:10 Are Ceres’ microbes going extinct? 41:00 Closing and Mars preview YouTube Membership: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz3qvETKooktNgCvvheuQDw/join Podcast: hhttps://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/john-michael-godier/subscribe Apple: https://apple.co/3CS7rjT More JMG https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnMichaelGodier Want to support the channel? Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/EventHorizonShow Follow us at other places! @JMGEventHorizon Music: https://stellardrone.bandcamp.com/ https://migueljohnson.bandcamp.com/ https://leerosevere.bandcamp.com/ https://aeriumambient.bandcamp.com/ FOOTAGE: NASA ESA/Hubble ESO - M.Kornmesser ESO - L.Calcada ESO - Jose Francisco Salgado (josefrancisco.org) NAOJ University of Warwick Goddard Visualization Studio Langley Research Center Pixabay$

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$Planet Nine Found in Old Data? With Terry Phan and Dr. Tomo Goto Could Planet Nine already be hiding in old infrared data? In this episode of Event Horizon, John Michael Godier speaks with astronomers Terry Phan and Prof. Tomotsugu Goto about their search for Planet Nine using archival data from the IRAS and AKARI space telescopes. They discuss how two detections decades apart could point to a hidden giant planet in our solar system. Papers: A Search for Planet Nine with IRAS and AKARI Data https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.17288 Do they repeat? Monitoring 36 non-repeating FRBs with FAST https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.03564 The true fraction of repeating fast radio bursts revealed through CHIME source count evolution https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.14337 Terry Long Phan is a PhD researcher at the Institute of Astronomy, National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) in Taiwan. His work focuses on observational astronomy, with an emphasis on infrared sky surveys and the search for elusive solar system bodies. He is the lead author of the study “A Search for Planet Nine with IRAS and AKARI Data,” which leverages archival infrared observations from space telescopes to identify candidate objects in the outer solar system. Tomo Goto is a professor of astronomy at the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. He received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Tokyo. He has been a fellow at the University of Hawaii and the Niels Bohr Institute. In 2006, he was a member of the JAXA team that launched the AKARI infrared space telescope. In 2015, he published his 100th peer-reviewed paper in an international journal. In 2021-2024, he was selected as a top 2% researcher in the world by Stanford University. He was ranked second among astronomers in Taiwan. 0:00 Introduction and bios 1:00 IRAS and AKARI infrared telescopes explained 2:13 Why Planet Nine might show up in old infrared data 3:27 The challenge of detecting distant, faint objects 4:13 Using visual inspection to identify candidates 5:02 The strongest Planet Nine candidate from the study 6:24 Orbital simulations and constraints from previous research 8:06 Can upcoming observatories confirm this detection? 9:33 Limitations of current infrared capabilities 12:50 Why this might change how we search for distant planets 15:28 Future follow-ups with new telescopes and data 18:10 Detecting movement in far-separated sky images 19:11 Estimating orbital periods from limited data 20:00 Why 700 AU is a critical distance for Planet Nine 20:38 Could telescopes mistake Planet Nine for a smaller object? 21:00 Why the object must be large to be seen by AKARI 24:30 Speculations about infrared detection of black holes or Dyson spheres 25:26 How infrared tells us about exotic solar system objects 30:31 Final thoughts and hope for a confirmed Planet Nine YouTube Membership: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz3qvETKooktNgCvvheuQDw/join Podcast: hhttps://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/john-michael-godier/subscribe Apple: https://apple.co/3CS7rjT More JMG https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnMichaelGodier Want to support the channel? Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/EventHorizonShow Follow us at other places! @JMGEventHorizon Music: https://stellardrone.bandcamp.com/ https://migueljohnson.bandcamp.com/ https://leerosevere.bandcamp.com/ https://aeriumambient.bandcamp.com/ FOOTAGE: NASA ESA/Hubble ESO - M.Kornmesser ESO - L.Calcada ESO - Jose Francisco Salgado (josefrancisco.org) NAOJ University of Warwick Goddard Visualization Studio Langley Research Center Pixabay$

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Event Horizon |

Why Intelligence May Be Extremely Rare in the Universe | With Fraser Cain