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 - Experiments prompted by a 2008 surprise from NASA´s Phoenix Mars Lander suggest that soil examined by NASA´s Viking Mars landers in 1976 may have contained carbon-based chemical building blocks of life. The findings could make a difference in how astrobiologists search for signs of past or present life on the red planet. See article.
g Intelligence - Microbes on Mars might be impressive, but the average Earthling would really be wowed by news of a full-blown, advanced civilization on a planet beyond our own. What’s the likelihood that such a civilization exists in our galaxy? Explore the arguments, then take our poll: Do you believe ET is out there, capable of phoning home? See article.
g Cosmicus - Now on its way to Jupiter, NASA's Juno spacecraft has taken time to capture images of Earth and the Moon. See article.
Get your SF book manuscript edited
The Drake Equation
This formula estimates the number of intelligent civilizations in our galaxy.N=(R*)(Ns)(Fp)(Ne)(Fl)(Fi)(Fc)(L)
Where:- N = Number of civilizations we can communicate with
- R* = Average star formation rate
- Ns = Percentage of stars capable of supporting earth-like planets
- Fp = Percentage of those stars with planets
- Ne = Average umber of planets in those stars' habitable zones
- Fl = Percentage of those planets where life begins
- Fi = Percentage of planets with life where an intelligent species evolves
- Fc = Percentage of those intelligent species that develop communication technology
- L = Average lifetime, in years, of a civilization that develops such technology
About Me
- Rob Bignell
- I'm the owner and chief editor at Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the editing and proofreading needs of writers both new and published. For more than two decades, I worked as an award-winning journalist, with half of those years spent as an editor. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres have been published, and I am the author of the nonfiction “Hikes with Tykes” series, a novel "Windmill", and a collection of poetry, "Love Letters to Sophie's Mom". For seven years I worked as an English teacher or a community college journalism instructor. I hold a master's degree in English and a bachelor's in journalism and English.