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 - To unravel the nature of black holes is of utmost importance, wrote Eric Chaisson, an American astrophysicist, "lest we someday begin to worship them." Dr Chaisson was warning against the human tendency to venerate the unknown, but new data suggest that black holes, some of the most enigmatic objects in the universe, may in a sense be deserving of veneration. For they seem to have been instrumental in bringing about the conditions necessary for life ultimately to emerge. See article.
g Life - A new study has uncovered fundamental details about the hexamer structures that make up the tiniest droplets of water. See article.
g Cosmicus - Astronaut Don Pettit continues his account of the Expedition 31 mission. In this installment, he talks about how space has a certain smell, the difficulties of shaving in microgravity, and the lakes of Kyrgyszstan. 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.