Wednesday, March 04, 2009

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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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Humans are very narrow minded. This is a fact; science, though useful, has created laws that cannot be crossed. Why couldn't life live near red dwarfs? It might be possible for life to even live ON stars. Itis interesting to see what scientists are suprised by.

Rob Bignell said...

I wouldn't disagree with you on our species' narrow-mindedness. Of course, scientists demand experimental proof before they'll accept speculation; at the same time, the drive behind science is speculation for which tests and observations then are conducted - hence fields such as theoretical physics.