Wednesday, July 21, 2010

No partial discoveries for SETI and challenges to planetary formation theory

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 - If M-Stars could host habitable planets, life may be much more widespread that we’ve previously thought. See article.
g Abodes - Recent discoveries of planetary systems around other stars have challenged the traditional model of planet development. These exoplanet discoveries have included gas giant planets in close orbit around their stars, some of which are in radically different planes of rotation from their primary stars. See article.
g Message - Sometimes being close counts – in horseshoes and romance, for example. For SETI, however, it’s hard to argue that a close call is any better than no call. After all, even if a signal mimics ET’s expected emission, what good is it if we eventually learn that it was only the carrier from a telecommunications satellite, ricocheting off the backup structure of our antenna? Ergo, SETI is often described as a one-bit experiment: there are no partial discoveries. See article. This article is from 2002.
g Cosmicus - With some robotic help, a team of scientists from NASA, Carnegie Mellon and the USGS has helped authorities solve a cold case murder investigation. See article.
g Aftermath - Here’s a follow-up to yesterday’s Aftermath feature about how SETI is using the social sciences to decipher our thoughts on alien life. See article. This article is from 2002.

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