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 - A team from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory has announced discovery of the brightest known image of a galaxy from the early universe. While furious star formation makes the galaxy luminous, it enters the record books because the gravity of a foreground galaxy acts as a natural telescope, focusing its light on the earth. See article.
g Abodes - One year after its launch on Nov. 9, 2005, and a few months into its science phase, ESA's Venus Express keeps working well and continues to gather lots of data about the hot and noxious atmosphere of the planet. Newly released images show additional details of the thick cloud deck that surrounds Venus. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061109130702.htm.
g Life - If the loss of marine species from over fishing and climate change continues at the current rate, all commercial fish and seafood species could collapse by 2048, scientists report. See http://www.livescience.com/environment/061102_marine_loss.html.
g Intelligence - Early human ancestors chowed down on more than fruits and leaves, a new study finds. They also fed on grasses, roots, and grazing animals as early as a million years ago. See http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/061109_teeth_diet.html.
g Cosmicus - Shuttle Discovery journeyed to launch pad 39B Thursday to begin final preparations for its nighttime blastoff Dec. 7 on a delicate space station re-wiring mission. NASA managers considered moving launch up an additional day, to Dec. 6, but ruled that out based on time needed to complete crew training and to develop software intended to prevent damage to the station's new solar arrays. See http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/061109status/.
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.