No, not that Bjork

EARTH may not be visited by aliens for a long time to come, according a new mathematical model which suggests it would take billions of years to probe the universe.

Mathematician Rasmus Bjork, from the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, has calculated that eight probes travelling at a tenth of the speed of light, and each capable of launching up to eight sub-probes, would take about 100,000 years to explore a region of space containing 40,000 stars.

When he scaled up the search to include 260,000 such systems in our galaxy's habitable zone, the probes took almost 10 billion years - three quarters the age of the universe - to explore just 0.4 per cent of the stars.

New Scientist magazine reported: "Bjork's answer (is that) aliens haven't contacted us because they haven't had the time to find us yet."

Now I find that a tad unneighbourly, would suggest that they take time to make time. Even if it's not for a nice cup of tea, they could at least drop in to borrow some sugar.....