Super-Earths around red dwarfs and ‘The Crowded Universe’

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 - Will the first “super-Earth” in the habitable zone of its star be found around a red dwarf? See article.
g Abodes - You wouldn’t think the thickness of ice on a distant moon of Jupiter could emerge as something of a political hot-button, but that seems to be what has happened in the ongoing investigation of Europa. Thick ice or thin? The question is more complicated than it looks, because by ‘thin’ ice we don’t mean just a few inches, but perhaps ten kilometers, perhaps five. The key question is not a specific measurement, but whether the ice is thin enough to allow the surface and the global ocean beneath to be connected, in the form of occasional cracks, melt-throughs or other events. See article.
g Life - Cores retrieved from layers of deep-sea rocks show that oxygen-producing organisms may have existed on Earth much earlier than previously thought. The chemical properties of the rocks indicate that the oceans and atmosphere of Earth were rich in oxygen 3.46 billion years ago. See article.
g Cosmicus - What if Kepler pulls in dozens, even hundreds, of Earth-sized planets in the habitable zones of their respective stars? See article.
g Learning - Book alert: In “The Crowded Universe”, Alan Boss, a theoretical astrophysicist who has studied models of planet formation, provides a broad, general review of the recent history of exoplanet discovery. See review.
g Imagining - What is the possibility of life and potential ecologies on a hulking gas giant like Jupiter? See article.

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Star system with two habitable planets and gasbags of Jupiter

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 - Could a star system with two habitable Earth-like planets exist? See abstract.
g Abodes - For aliens looking for “Earthlike” planets, the actual Earth was easy to overlook for most of its history. See article.
g Life - Microbes living deep underground could have survived the massive barrage of impacts that blasted the Earth 3.9 billion years ago, according to a new analysis. That means that today's life might be descended from microbes that arose as far back as 4.4 billion years ago, when the oceans formed. See article.
g Cosmicus - Project Daedalus was the first thoroughly detailed study of an interstellar vehicle, producing a report that has become legendary among interstellar researchers. But Daedalus wasn’t intended to be an end in itself. Tau Zero practitioner Kelvin Long here offers news of Project Icarus, a follow-up that will re-examine Daedalus in light of current technologies. See article.
g Imagining - ‘The Gasbags of Jupiter’ sounds for all the world like the title of an early 1930s novel that would have run in a venue like Science Wonder Stories. In fact, as Larry Klaes tells us below, the idea grew out of Carl Sagan’s speculations about free-floating life-forms that might populate the atmospheres of gas giant planets like Jupiter. Cornell physicist Edwin Salpeter had much to do with the evolution of that concept, helping Sagan produce a paper that was a classic of informed imagination (and one that led to numerous science fiction treatments as the idea gained currency). Larry’s celebration of Salpeter’s life gives a nod to that paper but also notes his deep involvement in the study of the most distant celestial objects. See article.

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Spotting transiting planets and alien ecospheres on Europa and Jupiter

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 - Recent quasar studies are showing us that entire galaxies may expel dust to distances of several hundred thousand light years. See article.
g Abodes - The car-sized asteroid that exploded above the Nubian Desert last October was small compared to the dinosaur-killing, civilization-ending objects that still orbit the sun. But that didn't stop it from having a huge impact among scientists. This was the first instance of an asteroid spotted in space before falling to Earth. See article. For related story, see Picking Up the Pieces.
g Life - Both a Spanish and a French astrophysicist have identified a band in the infrared range that serves to track the presence of organic material rich in oxygen and nitrogen in the interstellar dust grains. Should any telescope detect this band, the presence in space of aminoacids and other substances, which are the precursors to life, could be confirmed. See article.
g Intelligence - Quote of the Day: “If we blow ourselves up, there’s plenty more where we came from.” - Doris Lessing
g Message - what is the solipsist approach to extraterrestrial intelligence? See article.
g Cosmicus - Spotting transiting planets is what missions like CoRoT and Kepler are all about. The next step, getting a read on what’s in the atmosphere of any transiting, terrestrial world, is going to be tricky. The biomarkers like ozone and methane, so crucial for determining whether there’s life on a distant planet, are beyond the range of existing spacecraft. But the next generation James Webb Space Telescope is also in the works, scheduled for launch in 2013. See article.
g Learning - The Planetary Society has unveiled its new Catalog of Exoplanets, a fine resource with the basics on detection methods and a glossary that complements a catalog filled with helpful orbital animations. See article.
g Imagining - What might alien ecospheres on Europa and Jupiter look like? See article.

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Restricting SETI searches and 300 million years to colonize the galaxy

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 - In another amazingly gorgeous image, Hubble has captured a unique planetary nebula nested inside an open star cluster. The glowing gaseous shrouds were shed by the star after it ran out of fuel to sustain the nuclear reactions in its core. Our own sun will undergo a similar process, but not for another 5 billion years or so. See article.
g Abodes - A volcanic eruption close to the South Pacific nation of Tonga has destroyed rich bird life and vegetation, leaving a wasteland of black ash and tree stumps. See article.
g Life - Scientists have presented an artificial genetic system using a type of DNA with 12 chemical letters instead of the usual four. The technology is shedding light on the origins of life on Earth, and could be used to personalize medical treatment for millions of patients. See article.
g Message - It is easier in principle to find and characterize Earth-like planets when you can see them eclipsing their system’s star. Therefore if we want to talk with ETIs, we should be targeting our searches in the plane of the ecliptic. “Plane of the ecliptic” is just a technical term for the directions in space that would see us eclipsing the Sun. The aliens living in star systems in the plane of the ecliptic, so the reasoning goes, would then be the ones most likely to have spotted us and be trying to communicate with us. Responds one scientist and sci-fi writer: “Maybe a teeny-tiny bit more likely, but overall a dumb reason to restrict searches.” Here’s why.
g Cosmicus - Researchers at a U.S. Navy laboratory have unveiled what they say is "significant" evidence of cold fusion, a potential energy source that has many skeptics in the scientific community. See article.
g Learning - Looking for someplace inexpensive to go on your next vacation? Consider Mars. Now that Google Earth 5.0, with its built-in Mars mode, has been released, you can check out the most stunning vistas the Red Planet has to offer – and you won’t have to spend a dime. See article.
g Imagining - An intelligent species capable of interstellar communication could colonize/explore the galaxy within 300 million years, one researcher says. See article.

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Narrowing the SETI search and robotic Mars missions as Dead Men Walking?

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 - A neat piece of detective work to trace the roots of an exploded star has turned up a deeper mystery: why the victim, which turned out to be a beast of star more than 50 times bigger than our sun, didn't disappear into a black hole, as prevailing theories of stellar evolution predict, and why it exploded in the first place. See article.
g Abodes - A new look at data gathered from the Galileo spacecraft in 1990 reveals that Venus at one time may have been habitable, with evidence of past continents and oceans. See article.
g Life - Twenty different amino acids go into making up the vast variety of proteins so essential to life. But why does life on Earth use only left-handed versions of amino acids to build them? See article.
g Message - The search for extraterrestrial intelligence by looking for signals from advanced technological civilizations has been ongoing for some decades. Now some scientists suggest that it could possibly be made more efficient by focusing on stars from which the solar system can be observed via mini-eclipsings of the Sun by transiting planets. See article.
g Cosmicus - The robotic Mars program is sort of a planetary Dead Man Walking these days, as scientists debate what missions should be next on the agenda and how Mars should compete for funding with other compelling destinations ranging from our own moon to potentially life-harboring moons in the outer solar system. See article.
g Learning - Thinking about a future in science? Ever wonder just what scientists do every day? Or what it takes to prepare for a science career? Check out what these real-life scientists have to say about how they chose their work, what they do everyday and why they enjoy being scientists. See article.

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Proving exoworlds’ habitability and ‘Faint Echoes’

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 - Astronomers are close to discovering Earth-sized planets in Earth-like orbits around distant stars – but the real question is, are they habitable? Do they have Earth-like atmospheres? Such questions may prove very difficult to answer. See article.
g Message - Book alert: In “Faint Echoes, Distant Stars: The Science and Politics of Finding Life Beyond Earth,” Ben Bova proffers a good general history of astrobiology, or the history and structure of life in the cosmos -one of the newest fields of scientific research. He covers astronomy briefly and gives more detail about the political and technological history of NASA, showing the effects of politics and accidents on the field. He also notes what we have discovered about the history of life on this planet, what we are looking for beyond Earth and the solar system, and how we are presently going about it. With so much to cover, this is hardly an in-depth account, but it is a very good introduction for the general reader and even the specialist who wants a look at the larger picture. Bova seasons his account with entertaining and illustrative historical anecdotes, so that, as a bonus, we get an idea of what NASA has been doing since the end of the Apollo program and something about what it hopes to do in the future that many readers will live to see. See article.
g Cosmicus - NASA-funded researchers have made an important discovery regarding the loss of bone that astronauts experience while in space. The team has developed countermeasures that are effective in reducing the amount of bone loss in the hip. The method could aid astronauts on long-duration missions to the moon, Mars and beyond. See article.
article.

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Arguments against the rare earth hypothesis and why SETI should continue

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 - George Dvorsky takes on the rare earth hypothesis in his Sentient Developments blog, calling it a “delusion” and noting all the reasons why life in the galaxy is unlikely to be unusual See article.
g Life - Astrobiology theories fall between two positions. One is the mediocrity principle, which posits that we are not in any way special, and given the enormous numbers of galaxies, stars, etc, life - including intelligent variants - exists on many other planets. The other is the anthropic principle, which holds that the universe is optimal for human existence and hence we are the sole intelligent life form. The problem with both positions is that they base their statistics on a single sample. See article. Note: This article is from 2000.
g Message - The NASA Astrobiology Conference in April 2008 had as one of its topics, Future SETI: Technologies, Techniques and Strategies. Its premise was that after five decades of negative results from radio and optical SETI searches, there should be new approaches to the problem like detecting the biosignature of an extra solar planet. This premise regarding SETI is not supported by reality. In actual fact, very little systematic radio or optical SETI exploration has been performed. See article.
g Cosmicus - Astronauts aboard the International Space Station Sunday were forced to change the orbit of the station - and the Space Shuttle Discovery that is currently docked to it - to avoid an estimated 4-inch piece of space junk that may have been on a collision course. See article.
g Learning - In February, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) decried the presence of expanded funding for "something called 'volcano monitoring' " in President Obama's stimulus package, turning the geologic program into a flash point for fiscal conservatives and raising the ire of scientists. Earlier this week, policymakers got a chance to reemphasize the importance of the monitoring program after Alaska's Mount Redoubt erupted overnight, sending five explosive bursts of ash and steam as far as nine miles into the air and shutting down many flights at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. See article.

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Life in Venus’ clouds and tube map for the Milky Way

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 - The planets in our Solar System rotate around the Sun more or less in a plane (the ecliptic) that is tilted some sixty degrees with relation to the galactic disk. It’s interesting to speculate that this could have ramifications in terms of the SETI hunt. See article.
g Life - A recent report by US scientists published in the Journal of Astrobiology, claims life may exist in Venus, high in the clouds as tiny bacteria-like microbes, which may have survived over millennia by adapting to its harsh environment. See article.
g Message - After five decades, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence has failed to find any alien signals. SETI researchers are still optimistic that we will one day find evidence for intelligent life somewhere in our galaxy. A new book by SETI scientist, Seth Shostak, reviews the history, the controversies and the reasons for continuing the search. See article.
g Cosmicus - A map of the London Underground is a schematic diagram that has a beauty of its own, reducing a city beyond its topography to a sequence of formalized connections and zones. The fascination is in the abstraction of the familiar, rendering distance and space intelligible. Now look at what we might call a “tube map” of the Milky Way, as produced by Samuel Arbesman, a postdoc at Harvard with an interest in computational sociology and, obviously, big maps. See article.

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Number of stars in Milky Way and analogy for understanding Martian volcanoes

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 - We’ve often speculated here about how many stars exist in the Milky Way. Earlier estimates have ranged from one hundred billion up to four hundred billion, with a few wildcard guesses in the range of one trillion. The number is still, of course, inexact, but recent work has led to a serious misunderstanding of the subject. See article.
g Abodes - California’s famous Amboy Crater may be a good analogy for understanding Martian volcanoes. See article.
g Cosmicus - So a few weeks ago, a team at Johnson Space Center made a video report on what are some of the barriers to innovation at NASA. See article.

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Opportunity catches first glimpse of its destination and gold-plated records meant for ET

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 commonest stars in the universe aren't very Sun-like, but they could still have life-bearing planets, say Jill Tarter and Peter Backus, of the SETI Institute, and 30 other researchers. See article. Note: This article is from 2006.
g Abodes - NASA's Opportunity rover has caught its first glimpse of the destination it's been seeking for the past six months – Endeavor Crater. On route to Endeavor, Opportunity will continue to examine the Martian soil in search of clues about the past climate of Mars. See article.
g Message - When the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft were launched in 1977, they each included a gold-plated phonograph record (a "golden record") of natural sounds, greetings in human voices, and a variety of music. The record cover has symbolic instructions that show how to use and understand the record, though scientists still debate whether other civilizations will be able to decipher them. Click here for info on Voyager’s golden record.

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M-type stars close to Earth and Mars’ salty liquid water

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 - More than 261 "M" main-sequence, red dwarf stars are currently believed to be located within 10 parsecs (pc) - ­ or 32.6 light-years - of Sol. Thus, at least two-thirds (70 percent) of more than 370 stars and white and brown dwarfs found thus far to be located within 10 pc are very dim red dwarfs. At least 40 percent of some 260 red dwarfs have been identified as flare and variable stars, and so are likely to be "young" enough to be rotating rapidly and generating a dynamic magnetic field. However, all are much dimmer, smaller, and less massive than Sol. See article.
g Abodes - For the first time, liquid water has been detected on Mars. Salty, liquid water was identified on a leg of NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander. The discovery has important implications in determining whether or not Mars is habitable for life. See article.
g Life - Three new bacterial species found in the upper stratosphere are probably not alien visitors — but they're still quite remarkable. See article.

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How mineral crystals affected early life and developing an interest in ET at age 10

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 - Scientists studying climate change in Antarctica are showing how global warming and loss of sea ice are affecting many facets of the food chain. Interestingly, at the base of the food chain, Antarctic phytoplankton is responding in two contrasting ways. See article.
g Life - What do we have in common with a crystal chandelier? We’re both made of material that replicates its own structure. In our case it’s DNA, while the crystals in the chandelier grew from minerals like quartz. One scientist thinks for early life on Earth, certain mineral crystals played the role that DNA does for us today. See article.
g Learning - SETI scientist Seth Shostak says he developed an interest in extraterrestrial life at the tender age of ten, when he first picked up a book about the solar system. See article.

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An exoworld hospitable for life and the extraterrestrial origin of Earth’s proteins

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 - Astronomers studying light from the planetary system Gliese 581 have found that the host star is remarkably stable for billions of years. This means that the environment of its small, Earth-like planet, Gliese 581c, might be hospitable for life as we know it. See article. Note: This article is from 2007.
g Life - Left-handed people may be in the minority, but left-handed amino acids rule the Earth. Researchers have long known that the building blocks of proteins can be constructed in either “left-handed” or “right-handed” versions that are mirror images of each other, but that almost every living organism on Earth uses left-handed amino acids. Now, a new study gives weight to a theory of how that preference came to pass. See article.
g Cosmicus - Astronauts on board the International Space Station got the all-clear signal earlier this week as a piece of space debris passed harmlessly by the orbiter. See article.

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Meteorites delivering life’s molecules and robots that can traverse alien sand

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 - If you want to find extraterrestrial intelligence, you're going to have to look in the right place. In our galaxy alone there are more than 100 billion stars, so you might expect to find a profusion of alien abodes. But which suns do you point your telescope at? Bright, yellow stars like our own Sun have always seemed the obvious place to start. In the past few years, though, researchers have begun to wonder if they've been neglecting a whole class of likely targets: red dwarfs. See article. Note: This article is from 1999.
g Life - NASA scientists studying dust from meteorites have uncovered clues about how life works on its most basic, molecular level. The study shows that biological molecules created in space and delivered to Earth by meteorites may have had a profound effect on the development of life. See article.
g Cosmicus - Robotic explorers are used to study the Earth's most difficult terrain, and they also play a major role in the exploration of our solar system. Now, scientists have provided detailed recommendations for building robots that can traverse sand and other granular surfaces. The study could aid in the future exploration of environments like Mars. See article.

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Search for life on Mars and how simple photosynthesising life forms changed the Earth

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 - At the most recent NASA Astrobiology Science Conference, a panel of scientists discussed different types of planets where we might find alien life. In the fifth segment of this series, the panelists address questions from the audience about the search for life on Mars and elsewhere. See article.
g Life - Simple, photosynthesising life forms created an excess of oxygen in oceans 700 million years earlier than previous estimates suggest, an international team of geologists claim. See article.
g Cosmicus - For the second time in a week, the International Space Station is being threatened by a piece of wayward space junk. See article.

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How the Sun affects Earth and Hawaii’s contribution to astrobiology

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 - Twenty years ago, astronomers witnessed a powerful explosion on the sun. Shortly after, radio signals on Earth were jammed, satellites tumbled out of control and the entire Quebec power grid went down. The event showcased the powerful and immediate affects that the sun can have on the planet Earth. See article.
g Cosmicus - With the successful launch of NASA's Kepler mission, astronomers will now use the powerful instrument alongside Hawaii's W. M. Keck telescopes to increase their chances of finding planets beyond our solar system. Together, the two sets of telescopes will examine new planets to determine whether or not they are habitable. See article.
g Learning - With the appearance of Comet Lulin in the night sky, world renown astronomers have made the trip to the Big Island of Hawaii in order to observe the event using the world class telescopes on Mauna Kea. See article.

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Carbon-rich stars and ‘The Earth After Us’

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 - Astronomers have found evidence that carbon-rich stars may form at the center of the Milky Way. The research is helping astrobiologists understand how elements necessary for life are formed and distributed through the universe. See article.
g Intelligence - Book alert: In “The Earth After Us”, geologist Jan Zalasiewicz invites the reader to take a step in the scientific imagination far greater than that involved in looking at the Earth from the Moon, as the cover depicts. For the challenge taken up by the book is to look back at human civilization from a vantage point in time long after the human species itself has disappeared, through observations made by alien beings visiting the planet for the first time. See review.
g Cosmicus - With the launch of the "Kepler" spacecraft arises new hopes and dreams for what could be an earth-shattering answer to a question as old as time: Are there other earths just like ours? See article.

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Fermi Paradox revisited and ‘planned of the apes’

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 - Hunting for a planet that can support life? There's more to it than looking for Earth's distant twin. See article.
g Intelligence - Think people are the only ones who can plan for the future? You may change your mind when you hear the story of Santino the chimpanzee, whose premeditated attacks on zoo visitors are described in Current Biology. See article.
g Message - If intelligent life is out there, why haven’t we heard from it yet? So the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi asked in 1950 – over lunch, as legend has it, with Edward Teller, one of the fathers of the hydrogen bomb. It’s an innocent enough question, but history knows it by a grand title: the Fermi Paradox, a theoretical battlefield where for years intuitions have clashed and no clear victor emerges. See article.
g Cosmicus - A 5-inch piece of an old rocket engine recently came within striking distance of the International Space Station (ISS). See article.

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Killer comets and aliens among us

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 - Large debris disks around certain stars may imply a high rate of killer comets that wipe out any chance of life forming in these stellar systems. See article.
g Abodes - NAI’s Deep Time Drilling Project supported the drilling of several pristine cores from ancient rocks in Western Australia in 2004, and a new paper in last week’s Science, led by University of Washington astrobiologists, outlines results from the analysis of these cores. See article.
g Life - Aliens may be living among us. Lurking in nuclear waste pools. Breeding in acidic lakes. Or creeping underground devoid of oxygen and light. See article.
g Cosmicus - NASA has selected seven academic and research teams as initial members of the agency's Lunar Science Institute, and Naval Research Laboratory researchers will play a substantial role on one of the teams. See article.

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Messages beamed to Gliese 581c and protein evolution

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 - Scientists searching for extraterrestrial life might want to start digging under a Martian mountain three times as high as Mount Everest. See article.
g Abodes - The water that previously existed on the surface of Mars was probably too salty and too acidic to support the development of life. See article.
g Life - A new study on proteins is shedding light on the history of life on Earth. After eons of gradual evolution, proteins experienced an explosion of new forms that coincided with the increasing diversity of bacteria, archaea and eucarya. See article.
g Message - Last October, messages from Earth were beamed specifically at an alien world considered capable of supporting life, the planet Gliese 581c, a "super-Earth" located approximately 20 light years from us. See article.
g Cosmicus - On March 6, NASA launched Kepler, a telescope designed to find Earth-like planets orbiting distant stars. Kepler will study 100,000 stars simultaneously. But to examine the atmospheres of distant Earths for signs of life, says Sara Seagar of MIT, NASA may need to build a fleet of hundreds of tiny orbiting telescopes, each one dedicated to staring at a single star. See article.
g Learning - A childhood fascination with rocks has helped make this academic a world leader in the search for life on Mars. See article.

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Mars analog on earth and the new Space Race

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 - A region of Earth so barren and desolate that it's often compared to Mars is home to simple but thriving ecosystems, suggesting that life could indeed survive on the red planet. See article.
g Cosmicus - People and nations are as avidly engaged in the Space Race today as they were a half-century ago, and for the same reasons. What seemed like a sprint to the Moon in the 1960s has now become a marathon. The United States has remained among the leaders, but it has faced dogged competition at every stage. See article.
g Learning - Every summer, National Astrobiology Institute teams and others host hands-on, in-the-field, in-the-lab workshops for educators. The workshops feature cutting edge astrobiology research delivered by astrobiology scientists and education professionals, as well as inquiry- and standards-based activities ready for your classroom. Click here for a current list of offerings for Summer 2009.

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Pluto’s atmosphere and the Spirit rover’s new discoveries

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 - Scientists have made surprising discoveries about the atmosphere of the dwarf planet Pluto. The atmosphere contains unexpectedly large amounts of methane and is much warmer than the surface of Pluto itself. See article.
g Life - Animals shrunken by the evolutionary pressures of hunting and fishing could someday recover their lost splendor. See article.
g Cosmicus - Loose soil is forcing NASA's Spirit rover to take the long way around to its next study site. However, Spirit is already making new discoveries that will help scientists determine if the past environment of Mars was once capable of supporting life. See article.

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Embracing alternative biochemistries and the world's highest-known microbial ecosystems

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 - Gases rising from deep within the Earth are fueling the world's highest-known microbial ecosystems, which have been detected near the rim of the 19,850-foot-high Socompa volcano in the Andes by a University of Colorado at Boulder research team. See article.
g Life - A key challenge in astrobiology is to comprehend life and its interaction with the environment at a level sufficiently fundamental to embrace the alternative biochemistries that maybe encountered in a search for life elsewhere. See article.
g Cosmicus - NASA's Kepler mission has been successfully launched into space. Kepler is designed to find Earth-size planets that may have liquid water on their surfaces. Liquid water is believed to be essential for the formation of life. See article.

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Kepler launches and microbial ecosystems at 19,850 feet high

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 - Are there other Earths out there - rocky planets capable of supporting life, orbiting sun-like stars at comfortable distances? See article.
g Life - Scientists have shown how gases from within the Earth support microbial ecosystems at 19,850 feet high. They are the highest-known microbial communities on Earth, and highlight the unique ways in which life is connected to physical and chemical processes on our planet. The microbes could also help scientists understand how to search for life on Mars. See article.
g Cosmicus - NASA launched its Kepler spacecraft just before 11 p.m. Friday in a mission that the agency says may fundamentally change humanity's view of itself. See article.

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Ceres as the cradle of Earth life and asteroid belt pinball

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 - Scientists have determined that the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter should contain more asteroids than we actually observe today. The missing asteroids may be evidence of a dramatic event that occurred as the giant planets migrated to their present positions. See article.
g Life - The dwarf planet Ceres is rarely mentioned as a candidate for habitability, but the possible presence of an ocean and hydrothermal vents suggests it is plausible. If life developed on Ceres long ago, could it have seeded the young Earth? See article.
g Learning - Book alert: This year marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's masterpiece "On the Origin of Species." While this event, so seminal in the history of science, will be celebrated in a number of books slated to appear in 2009, none is likely to prove more compelling a read than Sean B. Carroll's "Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origin of Species." See review.

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Cycling of iron and Mono Lake’s lowly bacteria

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 - The cycling of iron in Earth's oceans plays an important role in supporting a variety of ocean ecosystems – and is ultimately vital to the global biosphere. By studying extreme environments on the ocean floor, researchers have now revealed unexpected clues about how biologically useful iron is released into the ocean. See article.
g Life - In a mat of lowly bacteria found in a foul-smelling hot spring near Mono Lake, Calif., is a living window into Earth's early history, a time when photosynthesis was barely evolved and the atmosphere non-existent. See article.
g Intelligence - "New and improved" could describe a brush-tipped probe invented by wild chimpanzees in Africa that found it did a better job than previous versions of the tool at gathering termites for consumption, according to a new study. See article.
g Cosmicus - Humans have ventured into space over the last 50 years, and all manner of junk has been left behind. From tiny bolts to whole space stations, people have discarded lots of stuff up there. Much of it eventually dies a fiery death as it falls through Earth's atmosphere, but some larger debris poses risks for astronauts and spacecraft that could collide with it. Here are some of the quirkier items left in space. See article.

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Reverse ecology and one day to Kepler launch

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 - Processes that laid the foundation for life on Earth - star and planet formation and the production of complex organic molecules in interstellar space - are yielding their secrets to astronomers. See article.
g Abodes - The Phoenix Mars Lander witnessed water vapor adsorbing into the Martian soil each night. Researchers suspect the films of water that resulted are probably too thin for life now, but they may have been thick enough millions of years ago. See article.
g Life - Researchers are using a technique called ‘reverse ecology’ to understand past environments on Earth. By examining the genes of bacteria, scientists are able to reconstruct what the organisms’ environments looked like millions of years ago. The data could help us understand key events in the history of life on Earth. See article.
g Cosmicus - If all goes according to plan, NASA's Kepler telescope will be launched on Friday from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air force Station, beginning a four-year quest for cosmic company - or at least a place in space where life may exist. See article.

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Life in dense, salty sinkholes and alien message in a bottle

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 - Only recently has the idea of habitable planets around red dwarf stars taken hold. But it’s a fascinating one, especially if you take a look at the potential window for life to develop on such worlds. M-class red dwarfs live anywhere from 50 billion up to several trillion years, a vast stretch compared with our own Sun’s projected ten billion years. And with 75 percent of main sequence stars thought to be red dwarfs, the hunt for life can be expanded enormously if we add red dwarfs to the mix. See article.
g Abodes - Researchers are studying life in an extreme environment not typically known for extremes. The dense, salty water of sinkholes in Lake Huron supports bizarre ecosystems composed of purple cyanobacteria mats and other strange microorganisms. See article.
g Message - Extraterrestrial civilizations may find it more efficient to communicate by sending material objects across interstellar distances rather than beams of electromagnetic radiation. See article. Note: This article is from 2004.

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Kepler readied for launch and ‘The Crowded Universe’

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 - NASA's Kepler spacecraft is scheduled to launch in early March. In orbit, the powerful telescope will search for Earth-like planets around distant, sun-like stars. The mission will help researchers determine if habitable planets are common or rare in the Universe. See article.
g Life - As NASA prepares to hunt for Earth-like planets in our corner of the Milky Way galaxy, there’s new buzz that “Star Trek’s” vision of a universe full of life may not be that far-fetched. See article.
g Cosmicus - Book alert: The latest challenge of the space race, according to Alan Boss in "The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets,” is the discovery of other solar systems with habitable Earth-like planets. See review.

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The time it will take for us to discover alien life and what’s really behind our phobia of extraterrestrials

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 - With the greatest total energy, the fastest motions, and the highest-energy initial emissions ever before seen, a gamma-ray burst recently observed by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is one for the record books. See article.
g Abodes - At the most recent NASA Astrobiology Science Conference, a panel of scientists discussed different types of planets where we might find alien life. In part four of this series, the panelists discuss the time it will take for us to discover alien life in the universe. See article.
g Life - New research shows that the large-scale evolution of microorganisms was completed 2.5 billion years ago. This included the ability of microorganisms to process nitrogen – an evolutionary step that has had long-lasting effects on the environment and the evolution of all life on Earth. See article.
g Intelligence - Would the development of our technical civilization have been possible without sponges? See article.
g Cosmicus - In an email interview, Steven Dick, NASA's chief historian, discusses his career as an astronomer and science historian and his research on extraterrestrial life. See article.
g Learning - After a long flight from Rome that landed him in Tucson on Wednesday, Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo spent Thursday with Vatican Observatory and University of Arizona astronomers, touring their campus offices and laboratories and hearing presentations on their latest research. The Vatican Observatory is planning a weeklong study session on astrobiology organized by UA astrobiologist Jonathan Lunine at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in November. See article.
g Aftermath - Here’s an interesting blog entry that addresses the question, “What's Really Behind Fear of Aliens?”

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Methods of finding extraterrestrial life and key philosophical and theological issues arising from first contact

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 Life - A new genus of millipede living in Arizona caves was recently discovered by a Northern Arizona University doctoral student and a Bureau of Land Management researcher. See article.
g Message - It's possible to split up the methods of finding extraterrestrial life into two categories: humans trying to discover extraterrestrial life, and humans trying to be discovered by extraterrestrial life. See article. Note: This article is from 2001.
g Aftermath - The scientific discussion of the evolution of life in the universe raises some key philosophical and theological issues: Will life and intelligence be found throughout the universe, or will it turn out to be exceedingly rare? Will intelligent life be capable of both rationality and moral agency? Will evolutionary biology determine its moral content or will it merely bequeath intelligent life with moral capacity, leaving moral content to be determined independently of biology? If moral agency evolves, will these species inevitably exhibit moral failure, or is our generic human experience of moral failure strictly the result of our particular evolution, leaving us to expect there to be other civilizations that are entirely benign? The discussion of these issues, though largely hypothetical, can offer insight into the theological and cultural implications of the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence as well into a better understanding of the human condition. See article.

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