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 - The most comprehensive comparison of our sun with other stars has shown that there is nothing 'special' about the sun. The findings add weight to the idea that life could be common in the universe. See article.
g Abodes - What makes Earth habitable? This LiveScience original video explores the science of global warming and explains how, for now, conditions here are just right. See article.
g Life - New research conducted by the MARTE project team has shown that microbes can make barren areas suitable for life. This could have important implications for the search for life on Mars and other planets. See article. For related article, see “Life Found Where You Least Expect It”.
g Message - Quote of the Day: “The stars … blindly run;/A web is wov’n across the sky;/From out waste places comes a cry” – Lord Alfred Tennyson, “In Memoriam, A.H.H. III”
g Cosmicus - Technology that could someday provide 3D roadmaps of other planets and moons is now in development. The information the maps provide would help in designing future scientific missions to locations in the solar system. See article.
g Imagining - Are there any alternatives to DNA or RNA, as an "X-Files" episode said there was? 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.