Galactic halo, personal space travel and ‘I Love Lucy’ in space

Welcome! “Alien Life” tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Today’s news:
g Stars - Scientists using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have detected an extensive halo of hot gas around a quiescent spiral galaxy. This discovery is evidence that galaxies like our Milky Way are still accumulating matter from the gradual inflow of intergalactic gas. See http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0602/06halo/.
g Abodes - As Alaska's Augustine Volcano erupts and sends a plume of ash more than 40,000 feet into the air, instruments on the ground are recording rumblings at the volcano's surface. The data collected will provide new insights into the inner workings of volcanoes along the Pacific Rim. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/
02/060216231550.htm.
gLife - An underwater mountain that forms the world's third-largest atoll has some of the richest diversity of marine life ever found in the Caribbean, according to scientists who recently explored the area. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/02/060214080938.htm.
g Intelligence - When a human looks at a number, letter or other shape, neurons in various areas of the brain's visual center respond to different components of that shape, almost instantaneously fitting them together like a puzzle to create an image that the individual then "sees" and understands, researchers at The Johns Hopkins University report. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/01/060125082426.htm.
g Message - The Earth is at the center of an expanding bubble of electromagnetic radiation. The bubble, expanding at the speed of light, contains all of the man-made electromagnetic transmissions of the earth - radio, TV, radar and so on. In theory, an alien civilization could receive these signals, and form their opinion about the earth by analyzing them. To most people, it is quite discouraging to think that some alien civilization would form their opinion of Earth based upon our situation comedies. Upon a slightly deeper analysis, the conventional wisdom says, “Aliens might detect our TV signals, but at least they can't form their opinion of our civilization from our TV transmissions. Decoding the transmission is so much harder than detecting it that we don't need to worry about this.” But an editor of the book “SETI 2020” argues that this view considerably underestimates the technologies that aliens might employ. By looking at likely technical improvements - better receivers and feeds, bigger antenna, signal processing, and perhaps stellar focusing, any civilization that can detect our radiations might well be able to decode it as well. Thus aliens can form their impression of Earth from “I Love Lucy.” See http://contactincontext.org/cic/v2i1/lucy.pdf.
g Cosmicus - In the last few years, personal space travel has become a far more feasible business proposition. But much work remains in fostering and then sustaining such an enterprise. For one, there is need not to over-promise ticket-paying customers about prospective space jaunts—adventure that will be costly for the foreseeable future and far from risk-free. See http://space.com/news/060216_tourism_staif.html.
g Learning - Here is a night Web site about how to start skygazing: http://www.earthsky.com/skywatching/tips_started.php.
g Imagining - Like first contact stories? Then be sure to read Gordon Eklund’s "Objects Unidentified (Flying)," anthologized in “First Contact” (edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Larry Segriff and published by DAW in 1997).
g Aftermath - How would proof of extraterrestrial intelligence affect humanity’s “world” view? Astronomer Steve Dick discusses the matter in this transcribed Smithsonian Institute lecture, from 1999, at http://www.sil.si.edu/silpublications/dibnerlibrarylectures/
extraterrestriallife/etcopykr.htm.