Thursday, August 06, 2009

Planets where we might find alien life and decoding an ETI message

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 - What is the habitable zone for the nearby star system GJ 2130 AB?
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. See article.
g Message - Picture Jodie Foster, her eyes closed and a mildly bored look on her face. She’s wearing earphones and listening to the dull roar of the cosmos. Now imagine Jodie 20 seconds later, when she hears something sounding like an unpleasant accident in the Boston Pops’ percussion section. Jodie knows she’s scored big: The aliens are on the air. Still, how can she be sure she’s picked up intelligence, and not just the cosmic gurgle of a completely natural object? How can she know she’s not merely harkening to the ticking beat of a pulsar, the whoosh of a quasar, or perhaps the lasing bray of a molecular gas cloud? See article.
g Aftermath - How would we go about deciphering a message sent by extraterrestrials? Two anthropologists suggest that we might gain clues to decoding more complex extraterrestrial messages by examining past attempts to decode languages right here on Earth. See article. Note: This article is from 2001.

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