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 - Using gravitational "lenses" in space, University of Utah astronomers discovered that the centers of the biggest galaxies are growing denser - evidence of repeated collisions and mergers by massive galaxies with 100 billion stars. See article.
g Abodes - A meteorite that landed in the Moroccan desert 14 months ago is providing more information about Mars. The Tissint meteorite shows evidence that it interacted with water on the Martian surface before it made its long journey to Earth. See article.
g Cosmicus - Don Pettit, member of the Expedition 31 crew, documents the life of a zucchini grown in orbit on the International Space Station. Studying how plants grow in space can help astrobiologists understand how Earth life adapts to the space environment. See article.
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.