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 - Low-density, low-luminosity red dwarfs are the most common stars in the universe, maybe 160 billion in the Milky Way alone. We’re paying attention to them now because they generated headlines in January, when the Journal of Astrobiology calculated that 40 percent of them have rocky “super-Earth” satellites. The red-dwarf planets in question are roughly four to five times the size of Earth, and are located in Goldilocks zones theoretically conducive to liquid surface water, i.e., life. According to the Journal, there could be as many as 100 life-sustaining super-Earths within 30 light years of here. See article.
g Abodes - Data from Cassini has revealed that Saturn's moon Phoebe is more planet-like than previously thought. Phoebe may have originated in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune, and was later captured by Saturn's gravity when it somehow got close to the giant planet. See article.
g Life - A new study is helping scientists understand whether or not dinosaurs were already undergoing a long-term decline before an asteroid struck the planet Earth at the end of the Cretaceous period. See article.
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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.