Star target list, Prometheus program and the Black Cloud

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars – Scientists from the University of Durham may have solved a decades-old puzzle regarding the distribution of the 11 small satellite galaxies that surround the Milky Way. See article.
g Abodes – Maggie Turnbull, an astronomer with the Carnegie Institution, has spent many years thinking about what kind of stars could harbor Earth-like planets. Her database of potentially habitable star systems could be used as a target list for NASA's upcoming Terrestrial Planet Finder mission. See article.
g Life – Human activities such as hunting and logging have driven nearly a quarter of the world's primate species — man's closest living relatives — to the brink of extinction, according to a new report. See article.
g Intelligence – The nation's central bank says that if you're gorgeous, chances are better that you will get paid more than plain folks. See article.
g Cosmicus – NASA’s Prometheus program to employ nuclear reactors in space is a work in progress — viewed as a key building block of the space agency’s vision for space exploration. See article.
g Learning – Here’s a neat classroom activity courtesy of NASA: The First Manned Mission to Mars. In this lesson, students will plan such an endeavour. In small groups and as a class, they will consider and discuss the social and scientific aspects of such a mission. See article.
g Imagining – Is the Black Cloud, the famous alien in Fred Hoyle’s science fiction novel, plausible? See article.
g Aftermath – Here’s an interesting article that from the viewpoint of some Christian theologies considers the condition of potential intelligent creatures in places in the universe other than Earth and inquires into the possible relationships of extraterrestrials to what our tellurian race calls religion and revelation. See article.

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