Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Abodes - Previous theories have suggested that the Moon formed from a cloud of debris caused by a small planet striking the early Earth. A new theory suggests that the impact may have actually broken off a chunk of the Earth, which later formed our planet's familiar moon. See article.
g Life - For the first time, researchers have been able to show by acoustic analysis that whales - or at least one very special white whale - can imitate the voices of humans. That's a surprise, because whales typically produce sounds in a manner that is wholly different from humans. See article.
g Cosmicus - As New Horizons travels toward Pluto, the science team has become increasingly aware that dangerous debris might be orbiting in the Pluto system. The spacecraft will have to navigate safely through the material in order to make its scientific observations of Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. 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.