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 - By mapping convection cells in Earth's magnetic field for the first time, scientists have shown that the behavior of the cells is linked to solar activity. The activity of our Sun has profound implications for the habitability of Earth, and studying this connection can help us understand the conditions for habitability beyond our Solar System. See article.
g Abodes - Discovering new planets that orbit distant stars has become commonplace. But now a team of astronomers has managed to predict the orbit of an extrasolar planet - before anyone knew for certain that it existed. The last time that happened was more than 150 years ago. See article.
g Life - Book alert: “Astrobiology: Origins from the Big-bang to Civilisation”, by Julián Chela Flores, Guillermo A. Lemarchand and John Oró, concerns the origin, evolution, distribution, and destiny of life in the universe. It discusses the transition from inert matter to cellular life and its evolution to fully developed intelligent lifeforms on Earth. Click here for a peak inside the book (and for order information).
g Message - A technique used to discover the small rocky world that was announced last year also could be used to detect a transmitter with the power of your local TV station at a distance of a hundred light-years, even if the alien broadcasters weren’t beaming our way. See article. Note: This article is from 2006.
g Cosmicus - Scientists need to better communicate space exploration's benefits, an astronomer says. See article. Note: This article is from 1999.
g Learning - Are you a future SETI scientist? See article. 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.