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What question does the Fermi paradox ask about intelligent extraterrestrial life?

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Planet TOI 700e — extraterrestrial life An illustration of the Earth-size planet TOI 700e orbiting within the habitable zone of its star. The habitable zone is the area around a star where liquid water, and thus possibly life, can survive on a planet's surface. Its Earth-size sibling, TOI 700d, can be seen in the distance.

The Fermi paradox highlights the contradiction between the high statistical probability that extraterrestrial intelligence should exist and the complete lack of evidence for it.1

The paradox is famously summarized by the question, "Where is everybody?" This inquiry, attributed to physicist Enrico Fermi, stems from the observation that given the age of the Milky Way Galaxy and the vast number of potentially habitable planets, an advanced civilization should have had ample time to explore or colonize the galaxy, yet we have observed no such visitation or communication.1

The paradox encompasses two primary concerns:
* Why has Earth not been visited?
* Why is there no evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence at all, a phenomenon often referred to as the "Great Silence"?1

Proposed explanations range from the possibility that interstellar travel is impossible or undesirable to the idea that technological civilizations are short-lived or that the emergence of intelligent life is exceptionally rare.1