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 - indirect evidence from X-ray telescopes has revealed telltale signs of thousands of black holes lurking in our own galaxy and beyond. Many are the remnants of exploded stars. But to other far more massive black holes, swallowing a single star is like Mount Everest absorbing a snowflake. See http://www.space.com/science
astronomy/060710_mystery_monday.html.
g Abodes - NASA Cassini spacecraft images of Saturn's diaphanous G and E rings are yielding new clues about their structure and formation. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/07/060705171218.htm.
g Life - By examining DNA extracted from a mammoth bone frozen in Siberian permafrost and comparing it with sequences from other mammoth remains, researchers have concluded that the wooly creatures probably carried two versions of Mc1r, a gene whose protein product helps determine hair color in several mammals, including humans, mice, horses and dogs. See http://www.live
science.com/animalworld/060706_mammoth_hair.html.
g Intelligence - Scientists may have revealed the origin of the battle of the sexes—in our genes. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/07/060707190114.htm.
g Cosmicus - NASA needs to rethink its Mars exploration plans after 2010 given new understandings about the red planet and likely funding levels in the coming years, according to a report just out from a panel of outside experts. See http://www.space.com/news/060706_mars_report.html.
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.