Welcome! “Alien Life” tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. You may notice that this and future entries are shorter than usual; Career, family and book deal commitments have forced me to cut back some of my projects. Now, here’s today’s news:
g Stars - The most true-to-life computer simulation ever made of our Sun's multimillion-degree outer atmosphere, the corona, successfully predicted its actual appearance during the March 29, 2006, solar eclipse, scientists have announced. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060626231813.htm.
g Abodes - ESA's Venus Express data undoubtedly confirm for the first time the presence of a huge '”double-eye” atmospheric vortex at the planet's south pole. This striking result comes from analysis of the data gathered by the spacecraft during the first orbit around the planet. See http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.phpop=modload
&name=News&file=article&sid=2006mode=thread&order
=0&thold=0.
g Life - Researchers scouring swamps in the heart of Borneo island have discovered a venomous species of snake that can change its skin color, the conservation group WWF announced Tuesday. See http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/ap_060627_snake_color.html.
g Intelligence - The southeastern Anatolian province of Þanlýurfa, considered to be the cradle of agriculture as well as hosting numerous examples of ancient architecture, promises new discoveries to shed light on the history of human evolution in the region. See http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=46755.
g Cosmicus - Within the framework of general relativity and without the introduction of wormholes, is it is possible to modify a space-time in a way that allows a spaceship to travel with an arbitrarily large speed, such as faster than light? One physicist thinks so. See www.members.shaw.ca/mike.anderton/WarpDrive.pdf.
g Learning - Here’s a neat lesson plan, “Extraterrestrials,” in which students learn that a digital radio message has been electronically transmitted into space by the Arecibo radio dish in Puerto Rico and that the purpose of the message is to alert any intelligent life in space to the existence of intelligent life on Earth. See http://school.
discovery.com/lessonplans/programs/extraterrestrials/.
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.