Will we ever see it? Probably not; interstellar distances are too vast for details like that to become observable.
reminds me of one of the endings to Men In Black
The odds of an average size protein such as hemoglobin, assuming all the required amino acids with the correct chirality, are 10e630. All the atomic particles in the universe are 10e89 and time is 10e27 nanoseconds. That is just one thing the evolutionary miracle will need to overcome. By the way the smallest chromosome in the human body has 1 million amino acids in it. Put that together using random chance.
Using present methods, I don't think we could determine if the solar system harbored life if we're more than 30 or so light years away. There could be a million stars in our galaxy that have life with our level of technology, and we'd likely never know it.
Space, is big. Most folks have no idea how mindbogglingly far apart everything is. If the speed of light is, as we suspect, a cosmic speed limit, nothing but generation ships could even hope to travel between nearby stars.
I read somewhere that only 4% of the universe is observable and the remaining 96% is speeding away from us so fast that it would be impossible for a spacecraft to ever reach the horizon in any direction. There may be keyword advanced intelligence out there ‘somewhere’, but odds are it would remain so distant there’d never be contact.
Of the 1/6th of our universes’ planets, there may also be intelligent life on the scale of predator/prey relationships. But how many have copied a stable atmosphere, or the diversity of edible plant life and animals seemingly taylored to man, or the scale of the advancements that man has seen - from Magellan navigating the Pacific in 60ft ships to satellites navigating the solar system just in the last 500 years?
IOW, you do not have to absolutely alone to be effectively alone. So make your plans like you are alone and get on with the work. Write up the contingency procedures and file them under Tab ZZZ: Extremely Unlikely Events in the Spacefarer Operations Manual.
By the way, if that another alien spacefaring civilization eventually comes across evidence of Earth spacefaring activities, is there any reason to believe they will not be as equally surprised and disturbed about it as we would be?
They will have had access to their version of the same science and reasoning as the scientists reported on the article. It is reasonable to infer them reaching silimiar conclusions. It is also reasonable to assume that, when presented with absolutely incontrovertible evidence that “the miracle” occurred at least TWICE (say the derelict Voyager probe), they would be eager to find out more about it.
How such a first contact is managed would be a reflection of the culture and experience of each civilization involved . Given Earth’s history of repeatedly bungled first contacts...
Yeah.