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 Abodes - New data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is changing our understanding of water on Mars and is helping scientists narrow the search for signs of life on the Red Planet. See http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.phpop=modload
&name=News&file=article&sid=2251mode=thread&order
=0&thold=0.
g Intelligence - Familiarity breeds more than contempt. It can also lead to communication snafus. See http://www.livescience.com/
humanbiology/070228_crossed_wires.html.
g Cosmicus - One of the most challenging issues for human-centered long-range space exploration is performing complex tasks in environments that are not human-friendly.... the traditional approach of building separate robots for separate tasks (such as the CanadaArm and surface rovers) may no longer be adequate for affordable space exploration as the required robotic tasks become diverse and the need to pack many functionalities into a single launch volume increases. Enter SuperBot. See http://space.com/business
technology/070301_technovel_superbot.html.
g Learning - Are you a future SETI scientist? See http://www.space
.com/searchforlife/devore_seti_sleuths_010228.html. Note: This article is from Feb. 2001.
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.