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 - What is the potential habitability of Ross 248, a star just 10 light years from Earth? See article.
g Abodes - In the first study of its kind, scientists have used the oldest minerals on Earth to reconstruct the composition of our planet's atmosphere just 500 million years after its formation, finding that it shares much closer characteristics to present-day conditions that previously thought. See article.
g Life - Natural nuclear reactors have arisen on Earth and possibly on other planets. The radiation and energy released by these reactors would have had complex effects on any developing life. See article.
g Message - Here are some moving excerpts from the written testimony submitted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Department of Astrophysics and Hayden Planetarium, American Museum of Natural History, to the "Life in the Universe" hearings held by the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics in 2001. See article.
g Cosmicus - An experiment aboard the shuttle Discovery is helping astrobiologists understand how plants adapt to living in space. 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.