Exoplanets falling into their stars and determining what bacteria might survive on Mars

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars - In a galaxy filled with billions of stars, scientists searching for alien life need some way to pick out those which are most likely to harbor habitable planets and moons. For more than 150 years, an important tool in this screening process has been the concept of a "circumstellar habitable zone." See article. Note: This article is from 2006.
g Abodes - Astronomers have discovered why some distant solar systems don't contain as many planets as expected. Some extrasolar planets may have been destroyed after falling into their parent stars. The research is helping astrobiologists understand how planetary systems form and evolve. See article.
g Life - In searching for unusual alien life on Earth, and life that can survive on Mars, scientists are experimenting with bacterial life forms to see if they can withstand extreme environments. See article.
g Learning - A NASA Web site featuring Montana State University's astrobiology research has been honored as one of the top science sites on the Internet. See article.

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Interstellar messaging and questions about how dinos went extinct

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Life - Scientists have long believed that the Chicxulub crater in the northern Yucutan was evidence of a massive, extra-terrestrial impact that signaled the end of the dinosaurs. A new study indicates that this may not be the case. In fact, the dinosaurs may not have gone extinct until 300,000 years after the impact. See article.
g Message - Here’s a neat Web site: “Interstellar Messaging”. You’ll find discussion, history and real-world examples of mankind's methods and ongoing attempts to communicate with extraterrestrials.
g Aftermath - Humans live and die by approximations. We are seldom as perfect or as accurate as we would like to be. And as we contemplate what we might say to an advanced extraterrestrial civilization, maybe that's a point we should emphasize. See article. Note: This article is from 2003.

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Replicating evolution in the lab and the challenge of learning about worlds orbiting distant stars

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Abodes - Imagine trying to learn everything you can about the Earth from a distance of billions or even trillions of kilometers. That's the challenge facing scientists who search for life on worlds orbiting distant stars. See article. Note: This article is from 2007.
g Life - Can evolution be played over again in the lab? A group of researchers plans to insert an ancient gene in a modern day bacteria and see if this gene will mutate back to its current-day form. The results will give insight into how unique the evolutionary path may be. See article.
g Intelligence - More Americans have given up their faith or changed religions because of a gradual spiritual drift than switched because of a disillusionment over their churches' policies, according to a new study released today which illustrates how personal spiritual attitudes are taking precedence over denominational traditions. See article.
g Cosmicus - Strange and exotic weapons are a recurring theme in science fiction. In some cases, weapons first introduced in science fiction have now been made a reality. Other science fiction weapons remain purely fictional, and are often beyond the realms of physical possibility. See article.

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Price for orbiting too close to one’s star and detecting chiral molecules

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars - Yes, M-type stars do evolve, just not in the classical sense that we are used to with solar-type stars. See article.
g Abodes - Astronomers have determined that giant exoplanets orbiting close to their stars could lose so much of their mass that only their cores remain. The smallest exoplanet discovered so far, which is less than twice the size of Earth, may be an example of this phenomenon. The study could have implications in the search for habitable worlds around distant stars. See article.
g Life - Scientists have developed an instrument for detecting polarized light after it reflects off of chiral molecules. Living organisms contain many chiral molecules, and the new technology could be useful in searching for life beyond our planet. See article.
g Cosmicus - The White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico is testing a new "laser beam." See article.

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New discoveries in Gliese 581 solar system and viral extinction rates

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars - A large fraction of red dwarf stars are very old (>5 Gyr), which present intriguing possibilities for the development of highly advanced modes of intelligent life on planets that may orbit them. See article.
g Abodes - Planet hunter Michel Mayor and his team have made two amazing discoveries regarding the Gliese 581 solar system. This star is orbited by the lightest exoplanet ever found, less than twice the mass of the Earth. One of the other planets in this system, a super-Earth, orbits within the star’s habitable zone. These new discoveries indicate astronomers may have found a solar system where alien life is possible. See article.
g Life - Two researchers from the Spanish Centre of Astrobiology have developed a mathematical model which demonstrates that a mild increase in the mutation rate of some viruses can reduce their infectivity, driving them to extinction. See article.

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A prediction that we’ll discover alien life within 10 years and understanding lunar dust behavior

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars - Because of their low luminosities, the circumstellar habitable zones of red dwarf stars are located within 0.05-0.4 AU of the host star. Nevertheless, the prospect of life on a planet located within the HZ of a red dwarf is moderately high, based on the longevity of these stars (>50 Gyr), their constant luminosities and high space densities, researchers say. See article.
g Abodes - It was arguably the biggest news in science this month: A graduate student in Australia discovered the continent of Africa. See article.
g Life - The genomes of man and dog have been joined in the scientific barnyard by the genome of the cow, an animal that walked beside them on the march to modern civilization. See article.
g Cosmicus - By revisiting data from the Apollo missions, researchers have gained new insight into the behavior of lunar dust. The very fine and sticky nature of dust on the moon could cause problems for future human missions. Lunar dust can coat and damage equipment, and poses health risks for astronauts who breathe it in. See article.
g Learning - Each year SPIE, an international optics and photonics society, recognizes outstanding achievements in the industry through its awards program. This year’s gold medal went to a scientist for work on an astrobiology-related project. See article.
g Aftermath - Professor Peter Smith, the University of Arizona expert who led NASA's Phoenix Mars Mission, predicts that at least basic forms of life would be discovered within the next decade. Microbes and bacteria were, thus far, the best bet, he said. See article.

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Martian methanogens and Ask an Astrobiologist

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars - Determining the number of red dwarfs with planets and assessing planetary
habitability (a planet’s potential to develop and sustain life) is critically important because such
studies would indicate how common life is in the universe, researchers say. See article.
g Abodes - In this podcast, astrobiologist Rick Ulrich talks about mapping Mars and the methanogens that might live there.
g Learning - Have a question about life in the universe? "Ask an Astrobiologist" is a service to answer astrobiology questions from the public, both about the origin and evolution of life on Earth and looking forward to the search for life on other worlds. If you have a question, begin by searching our database of more than 1,000 previous questions and answers. If you can’t find the information there, click Submit a Question and have your question personally answered by NAI’s Senior Scientist.

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Planet 1.9 time as massive as Earth discovered and new method of diverting asteroids

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars - More than half the stars in our galaxy are small, dim M dwarfs. Until recently, scientists believed these stars put out too little light to support life on any planets that orbited them. But at a recent workshop held at the SETI Institute, a multidisciplinary group of researchers concluded not only that M dwarfs might host habitable planets, but that they might also be good targets in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. See article. Note: This article is from 2005.
g Abodes - European astronomers said Tuesday that they had discovered the smallest planet yet found orbiting another star. The planet could be as little as only 1.9 times as massive as the Earth and belongs to a dim red star known as Gliese 581, which lies about 20 light-years from Earth in the constellation Libra. See article.
g Cosmicus - Researchers have determined a unique way to divert asteroids and other dangerous objects away from Earth. The method involves attaching a tether and ballast to incoming objects, and could help prevent a devastating impact in the future. See article.

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Martian weather reports and newest issue of Astrobiology

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars - A recent study suggest that “orphan” stars - which form in tails of gas that extend well outside their parent galaxy - may be more prevalent than previously thought. If planets can form around these stars, they would find themselves in a truly unique and lonely environment in the space between galaxies. See article. Note: This article is from 2007.
g Abodes - It's the time of year for dust storms on Mars, and NASA's twin Mars rovers are now taking advantage of Martian weather reports. Using images from orbiting spacecraft, scientists can identify where dust is rising into the Martian atmosphere and track its movements. See article.
g Life - Questions such as "How to search for weird alien life?" and "Would Earth microbes survive if delivered to the surface of Mars?" are addressed in articles that are part of the collection of reports presented in the current issue of Astrobiology. See article.

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New tool for detecting extraterrestrial organisms and five years after SpaceShip One

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars - Astronomers have determined how far away from its hot stellar neighbors a star must be if a swirling disk of dust around it is to stand a chance of forming planets. See article. Note: This article is from 2007.
g Abodes - From earliest times, humans have contemplated the existence of other Earth-like worlds in the universe. Now, NASA is turning conjecture into conclusion with its Kepler Mission, a first attempt to determine whether planets similar to earth are a rare or common occurrence in our galaxy. See article.
g Life - By measuring the photon signatures left when light bounces off photosynthesizing cells, astronomers may soon have a new tool for detecting extraterrestrial organisms. See article.
g Cosmicus - What’s transpired in the four and a half years since SpaceShipOne’s final prize-winning flight has been something of a disappointment to commercial spaceflight advocates. See article.

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Exotic microbes from Blood Falls and setting priorities for planetary missions

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars - Tiny crystals in a meteorite are shedding light on the formation of planetesimals – small objects in space that can eventually become planets. The findings are teaching researchers about the history and evolution of the Earth and the early Solar System. See article. Note: This article is from 2007.
g Abodes - Quote of the Day: "… to consider the Earth the only populated world in infinite space is as absurd as to assert that in an entire field sown with millet only one grain will grow." - Metrodorus of Chios
g Life - Weird creatures trapped in a sunless, frigid, briny dungeon deep beneath the ice at Blood Falls — has a nice horror-movie ring to it, doesn’t it? And for microbes, they have quite the exotic back story. They’ve been living in dark pockets of an ancient saltwater lake trapped under the advancing Taylor Glacier in Antarctica between 2 million and 4 million years ago. See article.
g Cosmicus - The next "decadal" survey of the U.S. planetary-science community will consider the technical maturity and cost of space missions, as well as their scientific value in setting priorities, applying lessons learned from the delayed Mars Science Laboratory. See article.

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Oxygen-rich atmosphere at 2.4 billion years and Kepler snaps its first image

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars - Red dwarfs are smaller, dimmer and cooler than our sun. There are more than a dozen of these stars within a few light years of our Earth, yet not one of them is visible to the naked eye. For years it was thought that they were a poor place to look for alien lifeforms. However, recent computer models contradict this supposition. This is excellent news for xenobiologists since four out of every five stars is a red dwarf. See article.
g Abodes - U.S. researchers say a study of sedimentary rocks created more than 2.4 billion years ago suggests the Earth had an early, oxygen-rich atmosphere. See article.
g Life - In this interview, Ariel Anbar - biogeochemist in the department of chemistry and biochemistry and the school of earth and space exploration at Arizona State University - talks to reporter May Copsey about fossils, “Star Trek” and life on Mars.
g Cosmicus - NASA's Kepler spacecraft has captured its first images of the star-rich patch of sky where it will soon begin searching for Earth-like planets. One image from Kepler's entire field of view is estimated to contain 14 million stars, more than 100,000 of which are considered excellent candidates for planet hunting. See article.

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Solar disk asymmetry and what alters Mars’ environment

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars - Astronomers have found a uniquely shaped disk of debris around a distant star. The asymmetry of the disk may be a sign of extrasolar planets, whose orbits could affect its shape. See article.
g Abodes - Solar energy and winds, collisions with asteroids and comets, and changing magnetic fields have all altered the environment of Mars, a planet that may have been able to support life during its history, as documented in a special collection of papers published in the current issue of Astrobiology. See article.
g Learning - Over and over again, science teachers at a recent convention remarked that their students are always asking about SETI and astronomy. Kids have a keen interest in astronomy, space sciences, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. What's out there? Are we alone? Ironically, this interest is not uniformly reflected in the state science education standards across the USA and these state standards drive textbook content. See article. Note: This article is from April 2003.

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Examining Ceres for alien life and the latest on our search of Mars

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars - When stars are more massive than about 8 times the Sun, they end their lives in a spectacular explosion called a supernova. The outer layers of the star are hurtled out into space at thousands of miles an hour, leaving a debris field of gas and dust with the potential of turning into habitable worlds. See article.
g Abodes - Plans are being drawn up for a low-cost mission to land on the dwarf planet Ceres. Known as the Ceres Polar Lander, it would examine polar regions and search for alien organisms. See article.
g Cosmicus - NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has had some recent troubles, but is continuing its mission to explore the surface of Mars. While the rover moves toward new scientific targets, members of the mission team are trying to determine why the rover recently rebooted its computer. See article.

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How planets form around red dwarfs and discovering evidence for aliens in our galaxy

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars - A recent study brings new insight into how planets form around red dwarfs, the most populous stars in the Milky Way galaxy. See article. Note: This article is from 2006.
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 final segment of this series, the panelists express their hopes about discovering evidence for aliens in our galaxy. See article.
g Intelligence - Quote of the Day: “We may pronounce each orb sustains a race/Of living things, adapted to the place./Were all the stars, whose beauteous realms of light,/At distance only hung to shine by night,/And with their twinkling beams to please our sight?/How many roll in ether, which the eye/Could ne‘er, till aided by the glass, descry;/And which no commerce with the Earth maintain!/Are all those glorious empires made in vain?” - Sir Richard Blackmore, in “Creation” (1712)

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Galaxy evolution and Vegetation Red-Edge

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars - A new finding indicates that not all massive, luminous galaxies formed shortly after the Big Bang. The study could yield new information about the origin and evolution of galaxies. See article.
g Abodes - The so-called Vegetation Red-Edge is a characteristic of vegetation spectra, and can therefore be used as a biomarker if it can be detected in an unresolved extrasolar Earth-like planet integrated reflectance spectrum, researchers say. See article.
g Intelligence - Quote of the Day: "Empty space is like a kingdom, and earth and sky are no more than a single individual person in that kingdom./Upon one tree are many fruits, and in one kingdom there are many people./How unreasonable it would be to suppose that, besides the earth and the sky which we can see, there are no other skies and no other earths." - Teng Mu, a Chinese scholar of the Sung Dynasty (960-1280 A.D.)
g Cosmicus - From a planetary security perspective, we can theoretically safeguard our species by expanding out in our own system with space-based habitats and possibly terraforming as options. The question then remains: What is it that drives the push to interstellar flight? See article.

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Carbon-stars and how we might explore the galaxy

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars - It’s long been believed that cosmic dust was first produced by supernovae, becoming the essential building block for the formation of planets. New work using the Spitzer Space Telescope suggests a second mechanism that complements the first. So-called “carbon stars”, stars late in their lives and similar to red giants but containing more carbon than oxygen, may have played as significant a role as supernovae themselves. See article.
g Abodes - Two identical NASA spacecraft are entering a location in space where the gravity of the sun and Earth combine to form gravitational wells where asteroids gather. These points could hold asteroids left over from a Mars-sized planet that formed billions of years ago, and then collided with the Earth to form our moon. See article.
g Cosmicus - Will humanity likely explore the galaxy from home or will at least a small number of humans will find the means to make the long journey, but perhaps not in ways we often imagine? See article.

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Life-giving broth around stars cooler than our sun and searching for ET right under our noses

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars - M-dwarf stars, much smaller, dimmer and cooler than stars like our sun, are by far the most common type of star in our galaxy. Yet scientists searching for life on other worlds have not shown much interest in M dwarfs. That's about to change. See article. Note: This article is from 2005.
g Abodes - Life is thought to have arisen from a hot soup of chemical ingredients. Could such a life-giving broth exist on planets around distant stars as well? A new study using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope indicates that a different mixture of life-forming chemicals may exist on planets that orbit stars cooler than our sun. See article.
g Life - The idea made fellow scientists laugh: The search for extraterrestrial life may be under our noses, even in our noses. See article.
g Cosmicus - What would it take to energize the public about interstellar flight? The answer seems obvious: Discover an Earth-type planet around another star. See article.

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How life may have survived on early Earth and controlling growth of DNA

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars - Understanding how galaxies form is no easy matter, particularly when you factor in dark matter. Without a firm knowledge of what dark matter actually is, we’re limited to discussing its perceived effects, something that researchers at Hebrew University of Jerusalem have coupled with computer simulations that change how we view the early universe. See article.
g Abodes - A new study on the harsh environment of deep-sea mud volcanoes is shedding light on how life might have survived on the early Earth, or could survive on other planets. The study was performed in the Gulf of Mexico where seafloor vents spew mud, oil, brine and gases that support life independent from the energy of the sun. See article.
g Life - In a recent paper, researchers describe the development of an information-containing DNA "seed" that can direct the self-assembled bottom-up growth of tiles of DNA in a precisely controlled fashion. See article.

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New lifeforms in the stratosphere and comparing quantitatively competing theories of life and intelligence

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Abodes - Researchers from the University of Melbourne and Princeton University have shown for the first time that the difference in reflection of light from the Earth’s land masses and oceans can be seen on the dark side of the moon, a phenomenon known as earthshine. See article.
g Life - Three new species of bacteria have been discovered in the upper stratosphere by Indian scientists in an experiment conducted by the Indian Space Research Organization. See article.
g Message - The search for extraterrestrial intelligence has been heavily influenced by solutions to the Drake Equation, which returns an integer value for the number of communicating civilizations resident in the Milky Way, and by the Fermi Paradox, glibly stated as: "If they are there, where are they?". Both rely on using average values of key parameters, such as the mean signal lifetime of a communicating civilization. A more accurate answer must take into account the distribution of stellar, planetary and biological attributes in the galaxy, as well as the stochastic nature of evolution itself. A recent paper outlines a method of Monte Carlo realization which does this, and hence allows an estimation of the distribution of key parameters in SETI, as well as allowing a quantification of their errors (and the level of ignorance therein). Furthermore, it provides a means for competing theories of life and intelligence to be compared quantitatively – or so its author claims. See article.

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Habitability of red dwarf stars and minimum civilization density for contact between two civilizations

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars - Not astrobiologists' first choice, red dwarf stars have now gained acceptance as potential hosts for habitable planets. They may not be great to live by in the first couple billion years, but they eventually settle down into relatively pleasant stars. See article.
g Abodes - Researchers are making surprising new discoveries about Saturn’s moon, Titan. The discoveries include the detection of a potential subterranean ocean of hydrocarbons and unique observations of Titan’s topsy-turvy topography. See article. For related story, see “Titan: A Rainy Season Ahead?”
g Message - A researcher claims to have developed a detailed quantitative model that uses the Drake equation and an assumption of an average maximum radio broadcasting distance by an communicative civilization to derive a minimum civilization density for contact between two civilizations to be probable in a given volume of space under certain conditions, the amount of time it would take for a first contact, and whether reciprocal contact is possible. His results show that under certain assumptions, a galaxy can be teeming with civilizations yet not have a guarantee of communication between any of them given either short lifetimes or small maximum distances for communication. See article.
g Cosmicus - In the market for a mammoth starship? Recently released work by Friedwardt Winterberg, discussed here by Adam Crowl, points to fast interplanetary travel and implies possibilities in the interstellar realm that are innovative and ingenious.
g Learning - Because of Oklahoma’s successful NASA Space Grant program which includes the NASA National Space Grant and College Fellowship Program and the Workforce Development Program at ECU, students and faculty are able to participate in site visits to NASA Centers to learn more about agency-wide and center-specific opportunities (internships, summer research camps, semester fellowships, employment, etc.) for students and faculty. See article.

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Human and aliens sharing commonality of DNA and a reasonable horizon for the detection of a signal from an extraterrestrial sender

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars - Just how common are brown dwarfs? The answer is still up for debate, for stars like these (with masses less than 0.05 that of the Sun) are so small that they do not burn hydrogen, and as they age, they become more and more difficult to detect. See article.
g Abodes - How well do we really know our Solar System? While we may be starting to unravel the secrets of Earth and its closest neighbors Mars and Venus, the gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn, that are much further afield remain shrouded in mystery. This edition of Space looks at the story of the forgotten planets.
g Life - The building blocks of life may be more than merely common in the cosmos. Humans and aliens could share a common genetic foundation. See article.
g Message - The Drake Equation in its various forms has been tormenting us for decades, raising the question of how to adjust variables that range from astronomical (the abundance of terrestrial planets) to biological (the probability of life’s emergence) and even sociological (the average lifetime of a technological civilization). Wildly optimistic estimates of the number of technological civilizations in our galaxy are now giving way to more sober reflection. Now Reginald Smith (Bouchet-Franklin Institute, Rochester, N.Y.) offers up a new analysis looking at how likely radio contact is given a civilization’s lifetime, and how widely that civilization’s signals can be clearly received. The key question: What if there is a reasonable horizon for the detection of a signal from an extraterrestrial sender? See article.
g Cosmicus - Would a species capable of star travel actually need to make the journey, given the advances in technology that would surely make it possible to learn more and more about exoplanets from its own star system? See article.

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Smallest exoplanet yet discovered and what’s in the future for NASA

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Abodes - The COROT mission’s 27-cm telescope has discovered the smallest exoplanet yet, with a diameter less than twice that of Earth. COROT-Exo-7b orbits a Sun-like star and highlights the ongoing space-based investigation into rocky worlds that is drawing ever closer to an Earth-mass object. See article.
g Life - Handedness, or "chirality," is when molecules come in two forms that are mirror images of each other, like right- and left-handed gloves. Even though chiral molecules are produced equally in nature, life seems to prefer one hand over the other. The reason for this is a mystery that scientists are struggling to answer. See article.
g Cosmicus - Science recently interviewed Ed Weiler, who's back at the helm of NASA's science program after a stint running Goddard Space Flight Center, about his plans for managing a $4.5 billion effort that spans numerous disciplines and must grapple with a serious glut of missions.

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Reconstructing the Tree of Life and is the Drake Equation a ‘meaningless calculation’?

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Life - Scientists have managed to explain the relationships between certain animal groups that appeared early in evolutionary history. The study is helping scientists reconstruct the "Tree of Life" on Earth. See article.
g Cosmicus - Collision with interstellar dust becomes a major issue when you’re traveling at speeds of just 0.3 c. See article.
g Learning - Is the Drake Equation a “meaningless calculation”? See article.

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What might be out there and traces an extinct human race might leave for aliens

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Life - They may not look like Spielberg’s idea of ET. They may not resemble anything that we can even begin to imagine. But there surely is something out there. Or is there? See article.
g Intelligence - Imagine that all the people on Earth - all 6.5 billion of us and counting – disappeared tomorrow. Left once more to its own devices, Nature would begin to reclaim the planet, as fields and pastures reverted to prairies and forest, the air and water cleansed themselves of pollutants, and roads and cities crumbled back to dust. But would the footprint of humanity ever fade away completely, or have we so altered the Earth that even a million years from now a visitor would know that an industrial society once ruled the planet? See article.
g Cosmicus - The upcoming LISA satellite mission is designed to help scientists see warping of the space/time continuum. However, the NASA/ESA mission may also be used by astrobiologists to study the frequency and mass of near-Earth asteroids. See article.

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How planetary crust effects life’s formation and life at the tropics vs. life at the poles

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars - A brilliant burst of gamma rays may have caused a mass extinction event on Earth 440 million years ago—and a similar celestial catastrophe could happen again, according to a new study. See article.
g Abodes - Book review: Comprising a planet's outermost portion, the crust is by far its most accessible part, and in the case of Earth it is of critical importance to sustaining life. However, the bewildering array of worlds in the Solar System means that in spite of this accessibility, a coherent understanding of crusts of the solid planets has not yet emerged. In their new treatise, S. Ross Taylor and Scott McLennan have attempted to systematically survey the available evidence and current theory for crustal formation in all the observed bodies in the Solar System, and to construct a framework for understanding their diversity. See review.
g Life - The diversity of life on Earth is concentrated near the equator, with a steep fall off towards the poles. A recent study finds this is because new species tend to form in the tropics and then migrate out. This historical pattern might point to a fundamental property of life. See article.
g Intelligence - Simulations that say about 361 intelligent civilizations exist in the galaxy work with several contrasting hypotheses, for each of which statistical methods were applied. See article.
g Message - NPR’s Science Friday included a conversation on astrobiology, the origins of life and the possibility we're not alone in the universe. Here’s a recording of the broadcast.
g Learning - Here’s a neat Web site for amateur astronomers: The Clear Sky Chart. It shows at a glance when, in the next 48 hours, we might expect clear and dark skies for one specific observing site.

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Using Hubble to find exoworlds and merging biology with astronomy

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Abodes - Using a novel image-processing technique, astronomers have discovered a new extrasolar planet by looking back through archived data from the Hubble Space Telescope. The new technique could help identify additional planets hidden in over a decade's worth of Hubble data currently available. See article.
g Life - At the end of the Permian Age, 250 million years ago, about 90 percent of all animals and plants on land became extinct. Now, a team of scientists has proposed a new theory as to what caused the largest known mass extinction in history, and it all comes down to giant salt lakes. See article.
g Intelligence - Scientists at the United Kingdom's Cambridge and Aberystwyth universities have created a "robot scientist" that they believe is the first automaton to make its own scientific discoveries. See article.
g Learning - Astrobiology, the study of life in the Solar System and beyond, is a relatively new field that seeks to answer a very old and fundamental question: where did we come from? The subject encompasses such diverse topics as the creation of the basic building blocks of life and the development of an environment that allowed life to flourish here on Earth. It touches on astronomy, geology, geophysics, atmospheric science, chemistry and biology — a challenge for any author. See article.

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Origin and evolution of life elsewhere and robotic lunar missions

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Abodes - Quote of the Day: “What a wonderful and amazing Scheme have we here of the magnificent Vastness of the Universe! So many Suns, so many Earths, and every one of them stock’d with so many Herbs, Trees and Animals, and adorn’d with so many Seas and Mountains! And how must our wonder and admiration be increased when we consider the prodigious distance and multitude of the Stars?” - Christiaan Huygens
g Life - 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 six of this series, the panelists answer audience questions about the origin and evolution of life elsewhere. See article.
g Cosmicus - Teams of privately funded scientists are currently attempting to design robotic lunar missions as part of the Google Lunar X-Prize. One team in particular is hoping to grow the first plants on the moon. If successful, they could help pave the way for future lunar settlements. See article.

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One hundred billion trillion Earth-like planets and silicon lifeforms

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars - Due to their small radii, M-dwarfs are very promising targets to search for transiting super-Earths, a new paper says. See article.
g Abodes - The number of Earth-like planets in the universe might be the same as the number of stars - about one hundred billion trillion. See article.
g Life - A new study pinpoints why large, bony fish suffered heavily during the last mass extinction 65 million years ago. The results of the study are helping scientists understand the evolutionary processes behind life's history on our planet. See article.
g Cosmicus - Yuri’s Foundation may be a way the global space community can create a peak lobby group to push the case for space to the governments of the world as CERN did with the LHC. See article.
g Imagining - If interested in how silicon lifeforms might exist, check out Justin Stanchfield’s short story “A Debt Unpaid.” You’ll find it in the old anthology “Absolutely Brilliant in Chrome”.

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Exoworld’s brief, searing encounter with its star and where Kepler will look for Earth-like planets

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars - The two STEREO spacecraft may be pressed into service to study what’s lurking in the L4 and L5 Lagrangian points, each 150 million kilometers from Earth, with L4 60 degrees in front of our planet and L5 60 degrees behind. Balancing the gravitational field of the Sun with that of Earth, the Lagrange points are interesting places, possibly a junkyard of debris from the early Solar System. See article.
g Abodes - A research team recently wrote up its Spitzer infrared observations of this mutable gas giant, a world with an orbit so eccentric that it almost mimics a comet, swinging out to 0.85 AU from its star, then rushing in to a breathtaking 0.03 AU for a brief, searing encounter. See article.
g Life - Strange life forms don't have to be the domain of distant planets and old Star Trek episodes. Astrobiologist Paul Davies says life as we don't know it might already exist in our own backyard. Davies talks with host Bruce Gellerman about the possibility of life on Earth evolving more than once, and about why scientists should launch a "mission to Earth" to find alien life. See interview. For related story, see Finding ‘Weird Life’ on Earth.
g Cosmicus - What area of space will Kepler search for Earth-like planets? See article.
g Imagining - If “weird life” did exist on Earth (see the Life entry above), what might it be like? One science fiction writer has taken a look. See article.

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