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 - In this interview, Monica Grady discusses the varieties of dust and meteorites that have fallen to Earth, and explains what they tell us about the history of the solar system and its potential for life. See article.
g Life - The use of trace metals by modern organisms probably derives from changes in ancient ocean chemistry. The availability of trace metals is believed to have been brought about by the biologically caused rise in atmospheric oxygen some 2.3 billion years ago. The development of photosynthesis affected the availability of trace metals, and therefore changed the course of evolution for life on Earth. See article.
g Intelligence - Happy people are healthier people, research suggests. See http://www.livescience.com/includes/iab.
htmlurl=/humanbiology/061110_happy_healthy.html.
g Cosmicus - For Virgin Galactic — the passenger-carrying spaceliner company — plans are rapidly taking shape to offer suborbital space flights in the near-term but also to eventually offer point-to-point rocket travel around the globe, as well as to space hotels, and trips to the Moon. See http://www.space.com/news/061110_tai_galactic.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.