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 are moving a step closer to solving one of the greatest murder mysteries of all time. It happened roughly 200 million years ago, marking the boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic periods, and the crime scene was the entire planet. In their quest to solve this ancient mystery, a team of scientists has been combing the coast of Northern Ireland for evidence. See article.
g Life - Researchers have discovered microbes that thrive in an environment that is, in some ways, "Mars-like." The microorganisms were found within a lava tube, and tolerate temperatures near freezing, low levels of oxygen, and absence of organic food. See article.
g Intelligence - A new study on swarms of bees could teach us about how our brains work. See article.
g Message - The Allen Telescope Array (ATA) is once again searching for signals of extraterrestrial intelligence. New targets for ATA will include exoplanet candidates discovered by NASA's Kepler space telescope. See article.
g Cosmicus - A new harpoon may help NASA grab samples from a speeding comet. See article.
g Aftermath - For some provocative reading, pick up “Sharing the Universe” by Seth Shostak. SETI scientist Shostak almost single-handedly is outlining social and political issues that will arise once we make contact with extraterrestrials.
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.