Monday, February 08, 2010

Image of giant stellar nursery and consulting with anthropologists about first contact with ETI

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 - ESO has released a magnificent VLT image of the giant stellar nursery surrounding NGC 3603, in which stars are continuously being born. Embedded in this scenic nebula is one of the most luminous and most compact clusters of young, massive stars in our Milky Way, which therefore serves as an excellent "local" analogue of very active star-forming regions in other galaxies. The cluster also hosts the most massive star to be "weighed" so far. See article.
g Message - Interstellar spacecraft are superior to electromagnetic wave propagation for extrasolar exploration and communication. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence should include a search for extraterrestrial probes. See article. Note: This article is from 1983.
g Cosmicus - ESA and NASA are inviting scientists from across the world to propose instruments for their joint Mars mission, the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. See article.
g Learning - The fact that you’re confronting this column on a web site devoted to space science and astronomy makes you roughly as rare as technetium. Despite the fact that astronomy is one of the two most popular science subjects in American schools (the other is biology), it’s really not that popular. See article. Note: This article is from 2007.
g Aftermath - As SETI scientists plan for their first contact with other worlds, who better to consult with than anthropologists, who specialize in encounters with exotic cultures? And thus, over the past several years the SETI Institute has repeatedly brought together anthropologists and scholars from other disciplines, in an attempt to bridge the gap between humans and extraterrestrials. See article. Note: This article is from 2007.

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3 comments:

Johany said...

Hi Rob,

I really enjoyed the article about Astronomy not being too popular. This fact is soooo true. I see it all the time.

I don't know anyone around where I live who loves astronomy and enjoys some backyard stargazing!!! This is really sad. Cause there is so much out there to explore!!! If you find more similar articles like this one please post them. I would love to read them!

Thanks again!

Rob Bignell said...

Glad you enjoyed the article, Johany; I'll definitely look for more on the topic. We certainly can get kids interested in stargazing at a young age - my son, who turns 3 in a couple of weeks, already can point out Mars to me in the night sky and loves taking a look through the telescope at the moon.

Johany said...

Nice Rob! That's what I'm talking about! Your 3 year old son is going to have so much fun learning the stars and astronomy with you!!! :)