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 - A new study indicates that size and location of a solar system's asteroid belt may determine whether or not complex life will evolve on Earth-like planets in the system. See article.
g Life - A new study suggests that mammalian eyes evolved for life in the dark. A nocturnal lifestyle may have helped them avoid predation by dinosaurs. See article.
g Learning - That change in perceptions towards astrobiology is due in part to the advances chronicled by Jacob Berkowitz in his book The Stardust Revolution. In it, he argues that we’re undergoing a scientific revolution as profound as the Copernican Revolution four centuries ago that shifted the Earth out of the center of the universe and the Darwinian Revolution of the nineteenth century that introduced revolution. This new revolution, he argues, is the merging of the first two, combining astronomy and biology: an argument expertly covered in the book, even if Berkowitz is guilty of a degree of overreach. 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.