Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Life - A new DNA analysis of soils from the Atacama desert has revealed a handful of new bacteria, fungi and archaea. The organisms discovered have a different way of converting energy than similar organisms found elsewhere in the world. See article.
g Message - Geoff Marcy, the chair for SETI at the University of California at Berkeley, recently told io9 he'd like to start searching the depths of space for Dyson spheres — those massive star-encasing structures that could be built by advanced extraterrestrials. Here's why the best way to find aliens is to search for Dyson spheres in deep space. See article.
g Cosmicus - Traveling to Mars is difficult, but successfully landing on the planet is even harder. NASA is now testing new technologies that could soon help large missions, including human missions, touch down safely on the surface of the red planet. 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.