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 - What is the habitable zone for the nearby star Gliese 5632 AB?
g Abodes - Scientists have shown that biological productivity may have been responsible for super greenhouse episodes during the Cretaceous and Eocene. The finding provides important insights into the links between the biosphere and our planet's climate. See article.
g Life - Mike Russell thinks life began in iron sulfide deposits at ocean vents. In this interview, he expands on his theory of how life originated, and explains why “life from space” scenarios are dead wrong. See article.
g Intelligence - The completion of the Allen Institute for Brain Science's inaugural project signals a remarkable leap forward in one of the last frontiers of medical science - the brain. The Institute today announced the completion of the groundbreaking Allen Brain Atlas, a Web- based, three-dimensional map of gene expression in the mouse brain. Detailing more than 21,000 genes at the cellular level, the Atlas provides scientists with a level of data previously not available. See article.
g Message - How might we detect an extraterrestrial messenger probe already in the solar system? See article. Note: This article is from 1983.
g Cosmicus - NASA will launch two probes into the radiation belts in order to study how violent space weather can affect astronauts and space equipment. The knowledge gained will be essential in designing safe future space missions. See article.
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.