Welcome! “Alien Life” tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Today’s news:
g Stars - The dim star Ross 154 is the seventh closest to our Sun, lying at about 9.7 light-years away. Might it support habitable planets? See http://www.solstation.com/stars/ross154.htm.
g Abodes - The possibility that life may once have evolved on Mars is strongly linked to the availability of liquid water over long time periods. So what criteria would make a good site for an astrobiological expedition on that world? See http://cmex.arc.nasa.gov/SiteCat/sitecat2/selexo.htm.
g Life - With cobalt waters harboring eerie, coral-like formations, this archipelago of lakes in Mexico’s searing Chihuahuan desert has always had an otherworldly appearance. Now, top NASA researchers say the calcified clumps of primitive bacteria lurking in its pools could provide important clues in their search for extraterrestrial life. See http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7381599/.
g Intelligence - Researchers are aiming to learn more about how the Earth was populated by collecting and analyzing genetic samples from 100,000 people around the globe. See http://www.rednova.com/
news/science/143473/gene_project_aims_to_trace_human_migration
/index.html. Note: This article is from 2005.
g Message - A U.S. astronomer has announced her shortlist of stars where extraterrestrial life might be found. See http://www.science
daily.com/upi/index.phpfeed=Science&article=UPI12006021909
215000bcusstars.xml. For related story, see “Shortlist of stellar candidates for habitable worlds” at http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0602/18habitable/.
g Cosmicus - AKARI, the new Japanese infrared sky surveyor mission in which ESA is participating, saw ‘first light’ on April 13, 2006 and delivered its first images of the cosmos. The images were taken towards the end of a successful checkout of the spacecraft in orbit. See http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM8NF9ATME_index_0.html.
g Learning - Here’s a neat classroom activity courtesy of NASA: Who Can Live Here? Students explore the limits of life on Earth to extend their beliefs about life to include its possibility on other worlds. See http://btc.montana.edu/ceres/html/ExtremeEnvironment/Extreme.
htm.
g Imagining - Like first contact stories? Then be sure to read Arthur C. Clarke’s short story "No Morning After," anthologized in “Time to Come” (edited by August Derleth and published by Farrar, Starus & Young in 1954).
g Aftermath - If we establish communication with a civilization even as close as 100 light years from Earth, the round-trip time for a message and its reply is 200 years. What will be the psychology of a civilization that can engage in a meaningful conversation with this sort of delay? How is such a conversation to be established? What should the content of such a conversation be? These are the questions which motivate this article’s title: "Minds and Millennia: The Psychology of Interstellar Communication." See http://web.archive.
/org/web/20010217051450/204.240.36.10/radobs/vol1no3/
minds.htm
The Drake Equation
This formula estimates the number of intelligent civilizations in our galaxy.N=(R*)(Ns)(Fp)(Ne)(Fl)(Fi)(Fc)(L)
Where:- N = Number of civilizations we can communicate with
- R* = Average star formation rate
- Ns = Percentage of stars capable of supporting earth-like planets
- Fp = Percentage of those stars with planets
- Ne = Average umber of planets in those stars' habitable zones
- Fl = Percentage of those planets where life begins
- Fi = Percentage of planets with life where an intelligent species evolves
- Fc = Percentage of those intelligent species that develop communication technology
- L = Average lifetime, in years, of a civilization that develops such technology
About Me
- Rob Bignell
- I'm the owner and chief editor at Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the editing and proofreading needs of writers both new and published. For more than two decades, I worked as an award-winning journalist, with half of those years spent as an editor. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres have been published, and I am the author of the nonfiction “Hikes with Tykes” series, a novel "Windmill", and a collection of poetry, "Love Letters to Sophie's Mom". For seven years I worked as an English teacher or a community college journalism instructor. I hold a master's degree in English and a bachelor's in journalism and English.