Professor Brian Cox explains why he thinks we still haven't heard from aliens

Sometimes people go and gaze up at the stars in wonderment, specifically wondering if aliens are out there and making plans to come and see us.

Either we are alone in the universe or we are not, and both outcomes are pretty terrifying.

However, the idea that aliens could come to Earth and make contact has long held a fascination for our species.

Professor Brian Cox was recently marvelling on social media at how the interstellar probe Voyager could be fixed from all the way back here on Earth.

Sadly, the responses he got on social media led him to wonder if perhaps aliens didn't make contact as 'civilisations are inevitably crushed by the weight of nobheads shortly after inventing the internet'.

There are plenty who think that the internet is the greatest communication tool ever devised, and plenty of others who reckon it's ultimately not been a very good thing for our species in the long run.

There might be a reason why the aliens don't visit us. (Twitter/@ProfBrianCox)

For reference, the Fermi Paradox is about the lack of evidence of other life in the universe and the likelihood that extra-terrestrial life exists somewhere.

Essentially, with so many stars and so many planets in the universe, there must surely be some others which can sustain life like Earth? Many of these are older than our own world, which means that if there are alien civilisations out there, they could be far more advanced than we are.

However, while we know that's the case, the Fermi Paradox poses the rather obvious question: where the hell are all the aliens?

Cox has said in the past that he reckons it's possible we're alone in our own galaxy at least, though the question of whether there might be other civilisations elsewhere in the universe is still open.

He's also not the only expert who's got a similar line of thinking about why aliens don't ever bother to visit us.

Professor Brian Cox has some idea why we've never met any aliens. (David Levenson/Getty Images)

Some brainiacs have theorised that alien life does exist and they could visit us if they so desired, but they reckon we're a bunch of idiots and not worth interacting with.

That may sound a bit harsh, but if you were an alien and were monitoring what we were up to, would you want to deal with all of our drama?

Thought not.

Then, of course, there's the more sobering thought that pretty much any civilisation advanced enough to travel to other planets also likely has the capability to destroy themselves.

If we were technologically advanced to visit other solar systems, then we'd also likely have the ability to ruin our entire species (not that we already don't with nuclear bombs), so it stands to reason that the same would be true of aliens.

It's a bit of a sad thought isn't it?