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 - Scientists studying meteorite fragments have found evidence that liquid water inside an asteroid could be the reason that the amino acids found in meteorites show a strong preference for left-handed versus right-handed orientations. See article.
g Cosmicus - Scientists have solved a lunar mystery concerning localized magnetic fields in the Moon's crust. The results could provide safe havens for future space explorers. See article.
g Aftermath - A couple of years ago the eminent theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking warned that a human encounter with intelligent extraterrestrial beings could be dangerous for us, sort of similar to the way Europeans were dangerous to ancient Native Americans, “which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.” In hindsight, it would not have been a good idea for the Native Americans to go searching for Europeans. 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.