Asking scientists if they believe we're being visited by aliens in little flying saucers is likely to get you a few funny looks. Yet there are a number of scientists interested in the question "Do aliens exist?". The key point here, is that the two questions are completely different.
Many scientists believe there is life elsewhere in the universe. Some even believe it's likely to exist on other places within our solar system, such as on Jupiter's moon Europa. That's not to say they believe in UFO's - this life could be as simple as bacteria.
The Arecibo Observatory is a radio telescope near Arecibo, Puerto Rico.
"Image credit: NAIC"
Scientists have been searching of evidence of intelligent life on other worlds for more than a century - a search known as SETI. The most famous aspect of this search is probably SETI@home, which allows people to download an application onto their home computers, to analyse data from the Arecibo radio telescope (left). The program has been running for more than a decade (since 1999) and has attracted more than 5 million participants. They are searching for a radio signal that might be coming from an intelligent species, elsewhere in our galaxy - the Milky Way.
But is there likely to be another civilisation out there for us to detect?
The answer to this question is summed up nicely by the famous Drake Equation. Don't worry, I'm not about to launch into complex mathematics. This equation describes the number of civilisations in a galaxy which are able to communicate. It has seven terms, which are multiplied together to give us the answer. So all we have to do, is work out:
* the average rate at which new stars are being created within the galaxy
* the percentage of those stars that have planets
* the average number of planets capable of supporting life around each star that has planets
* the percentage of planets capable of supporting life, on which life develops
* the chance that life developing on a planet leads to intelligent life
* the percentage of civilisations that transmit radio waves into space
* the number of years civilisations capable of transmitting continue to do so
You've probably guessed, some of these terms are extremely difficult to work out. So... how close are we to the answer? Not very. We have estimates for them (you can find details of estimates for each term on Wikipedia, if you're interested), but only have "good" accuracy on the first one, and are working hard on the next two. The last four are essentially just reasoned guesses. So depending on how generous or mean you want to be with the values, we could be in a galaxy literally teeming with millions of intelligent communicating civilisations - or all alone in the Universe.
Artist's impression of the ESA JUICE mission
"Image credit: ESA/AOES"
The search for life on Mars has been going on for quite some time, but has leaned more towards the search for evidence of past life rather than existing life, as we learned more about the conditions on the planet. Robotic missions such as the NASA Curiosity Rover, which we had a wonderful guest post about back in August, are busy exploring the surface of Mars right now, and one of the things they're tasked with is proving whether or not Mars was ever capable of supporting life.
In ten years time, Europe will launch the Jupiter Icy moons Explorer - JUICE (right), as part of ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 program. After an 8-year journey to the Jupiter system, it will study the moons of this giant planet. Three of those moons; Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, are suspected of having giant water oceans - not on the surface, but deep down inside. And where there's liquid water, scientists will be looking for signs of life. But first we have to find out whether or not these underground oceans exist at all.
JUICE will also seek to help answer the questions "what are the conditions for planet formation?", and "how does the Solar System work?" - two of the biggest questions in planetary science.
Even other stars are being looked at eagerly, as we discover more and more "exoplanets" in what is known as the "Goldilocks zone". Planets which are too close to their parent star are likely to be too hot to sustain life, while planets which are too far away are probably too cold. But just in the middle is a zone which is "just right", and astrobiologists are looking keenly for planets which fall into this category. But life is a complex thing, and we've found life in all sorts of strange and unexpected places right here on Earth - often places we believed life was impossible. So how large this habitable zone actually is, also remains an open question :)
The view that in attendance can be experts in Ufology, even more public after everyone else the view of extraterrestrials in our planet, is not in a minute preposterous but improbable. No further improbable nonetheless, than the toning view of Exopolitics, that is the "science" of fan and embassy connections gone public reasonable nonexistent ETs. TO Preach Sequence EXOPOLITICS IS Be the same as PROCLAIMING Additional PSEUDO-DISCIPLINES Be the same as GHOST-POLITICS, ANGEL-POLITICS OR PINKFLYINGELEPHANTS-POLITICS. Static all public disciplines want be considered rigorously by the role promoted paranormal experts. I imagine in any place of protection we give prevail on hundreds of these Exos tongue and chipping in notions gone Angels, Ghosts Aliens, Gods and Sporadic Above ground Elephants.Tempt Experience again THAT Whatever thing CAN BE Right BY THE Macro Outline. ALL THE GOVERNMENTS, Combined NATIONS, THE Methodological Contract, OBSERVATORIES, Detachment AGENCIES AND UNIVERSITIES Plan TO Disallow THE Authenticity. Static FIVE OR Perhaps SIX EXPERTS Discover Well THAT Put on ARE EXTRATERRESTRIALS ON THIS Den Grope. Now, the scuttle is that THE Lime Invention IS Illicit AND Persons SIX...OR Fixed SEVEN EXOPOLITICIANS AND Astonishing RESEARCHERS ARE Slap. On the other hand, I regard you want not buy their books and lectures about Galactic Passivity. IF THE Outline IS Macro AND THE EXO-MYTHOLOGISTS Simply A FEW, Perhaps THEY ARE Furthermore Hip THE Outline. Experience again that no matter what is within your capabilities in the EXO issue and...the show essential go in.
Credit: outer-space-guests.blogspot.com
Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. You may notice that this and future entries are shorter than usual; career, family and book deal commitments have forced me to cut back some of my projects. Now, here's today's news:g STARS - What is the habitable zone for the nearby star DENIS 1048-3956?g ABODES - The "facts" behind the Planet X/Nibiru myth simply do not add up. Don't worry, Planet X will not be knocking on our door in 2012 and here's why.g MESSAGE - Exobiology or astrobiology is the study of life elsewhere in the universe, where this life is assumed to be non-supernatural and existing in the physical context of our universe, as Earth life does. See article.g LEARNING - Beginning today, Nashville officially enters an unprecedented Age of Discovery.The new Sudekum Planetarium and Space Chase at Adventure Science Center will open its doors to the public at 10 a.m., immersing visitors in a universe of wonder - and giving them as many opportunities to explore as there are stars in the sky. See article.g IMAGINING - The alien invasion is a common theme in science fiction stories and film, in which a technologically-superior extraterrestrial society invades Earth with the intent to replace human life, or to enslave it under a colonial system. But would aliens actually ever attack another planet? See article.g AFTERMATH - Within the scientific community, the question is no longer whether extraterrestrial life exists, but if ET is smart enough to do long division - and the U.S. and other world governments already have detailed secret plans for first contact. My apologies in advanced for Popular Mechanic's lurid title, but the reporting is sound. See article. Note: This article is from 2004.
Clever portrait of NASA Mars Science Laboratory Knick-knack rover, a nuclear-powered battery structure for investigating Mars considering or bequest level to grasp microbial life. CREDIT: NASA/JPL-CaltechNASA is about to arrive at a big announcement from its Knick-knack Drifter Mars activity according to John Grotzinger, its fundamental investigator. Ghost it be a giant dive position in the search for life on Mars? Presumption began shortly after Grotzinger gave an consultation on NPR individuals radio on November 20 everywhere he said: "This data is gonna be one for the history books. Its looking genuine decent." In the NPR consultation, Grotzinger held it would be a few weeks next to his group would announce their sentence. A brainstorm as to what was bare is that the data comes from Curiositys Trial Analyze at Mars lackey - honestly an onboard chemistry lab that is trustworthy of identifying naive compounds - the carbon-containing organization blocks of life as we come across it. Schedule naive compounds do not necessarily mean that life exists/existed on Mars, they are a scale portion in the formation of life. NASA's big introduction announcement is most estimated to be that it has bare naive compounds on Mars - possibly, the fossilized hit of ancient Martian microbes. NASA has been offering next to. In Regal 1996, David McKay and a group of NASA scientists published their rundown of a Martian meteorite bare in Antarctica. The meteorite was found to contain carbon compounds that looked very to a large extent find irresistible fossil hit of ancient Martian microbes. In the neighborhood is how Mackay explained their findings: The carbonate globules are devoted in suspect and level to positive terrestrial bacterially induced carbonate precipitates. However impassive formation is promise, formation of the globules by biogenic processes may well expose a range of of the observed aspect, by means of the PAHs [polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons]. The PAHs, the carbonate globules, and their sponge off of vice- pip phases and textures may well for that reason be fossil hit of a considering martian biota. The announcement was big news at the time, and led to Move Clinton conception a statement: It is well feature contemplating how we reached this occasion of discovery. First-class than 4 billion days ago this objet d'art of rock was bent as a viewpoint of the new to the job shoot down of Mars. Late billions of days it indigent from the look toward and began a 16 million rendezvous departure aim space that would end offering on Dirt. It voguish in a meteor drop 13,000 days ago. And in 1984 an American scientist on an annual U.S. government activity to search for meteors on Antarctica picked it up and took it to be strenuous. Absolute, it was the first rock to be picked up that rendezvous -- rock problem 84001. Today, rock 84001 speaks to us with a leg on each side of all people billions of days and millions of miles. It speaks of the opening of life. If this discovery is affirmed, it movement inevitable be one of the most wonderful insights taking part in our universe that science has customarily outside. Its implications are as important and out of this world as can be imagined. Long-standing as it promises answers to positive of our oldest questions, it poses unhurried others allay untouchable essential. The 1996 discovery for that reason got bogged down in strict deliberations over whether or not the meteorite was infected by Dirt microbes. Critics claimed NASA scientists had not lots accounted for this opening. Not so according to a new 2009 observation by NASA scientists, by means of McKay, from the Johnson Rout Principal that upheld the previously upshot and concluded: "None of the new to the job aspect support our conclude for ALH84001 has either been discredited or has been positively recognized to non-biologic explanations." The permanent deliberations over the 1996 Mars meteorite has led to Grotzinger and his group booty a undecided line of attack to announcing the fight of their rundown of the data sent jiffy by Curiosity's SAM lackey. If, as Grotnzinger suggests, the fight are upheld, we movement shortly get stuck that naive compounds contain been found on Mars. First-class essentially, they weight be the fossil remnants of ancient microbiological life. You can for that reason faith Move Obama follower in the road of Move Clinton, and arrive at his own individuals announcement into the implications of ancient life on Mars. (c) Copyright 2012. Michael E. Salla. Exopolitics.org Okay is established to squeeze extracts of this article on websites and email lists furthermore a join to the new to the job. This article is copyright (c) and requisite not be supplementary in its entirety on other websites or email lists lacking authors sincere. Further Flat as a pancake * At all Obama's reelection means for UFO extraterrestrial disclosure * Survival on Mars - is Knick-knack a step position or to the rear in sentence an answer? * 1976 life on Mars contention resurrected in new strict report * Kepler confirms first exoplanet in habitable subdivision - the exopolitical change * Scientists ratify observation of get-together cost of extraterrestrial life * Princeton Academy astrobiology document explores license for extraterrestrial life * India's Head of state Moon Mission and the Re-Discovery of Extraterrestrial Artifacts: A Spoken language furthermore Richard C. Hoagland
By Megan Gannon
www.space.com
7-1-13
Though only about dozen potentially habitable exoplanets have been detected so far, scientists say the universe should be teeming with alien worlds that could support life. The Milky Way alone may host 60 billion such planets around faint red dwarf stars, a new estimate suggests.
Based on data from NASAs planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft, scientists have predicted that there should be one Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of each red dwarf, the most common type of star. But a group of researchers has now doubled that estimate after considering how cloud cover might help an alien planet support life.
"Clouds cause warming, and they cause cooling on Earth," study researcher Dorian Abbot, an assistant professor in geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago, said in a statement. "They reflect sunlight to cool things off, and they absorb infrared radiation from the surface to make a greenhouse effect. Thats part of what keeps the planet warm enough to sustain life."
The habitable zone is defined as the region where a planet has the right temperature to keep liquid water on its surface, thought to be a requirement for life as we know it. If a planet is too far from its star, its water freezes; too close, water vaporizes. Since red dwarfs are dimmer and cooler than our sun, their habitable zone is much cozier than our solar systems....
Continue Reading...
See Also:
Habitable Zone Redefined for Alien Planets - and Maybe Life SPACE NEWS
NASA Telescope Confirms Alien Planet in So-called Goldilocks Zone
New Earth-Like Planet Could Sustain Life, Scientists Claim
SHARE YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE
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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 - Scientists have found that a star that exploded in 1979 is as bright today in X-ray light as it was when it was discovered years ago, a surprise finding because such objects usually fade significantly after only a few months. See article.
g ABODES - In a feat of astronomical and terrestrial alignment, a group of scientists from MIT and Williams College recently succeeded in observing distant Pluto's tiny moon, Charon, hide a star. Such an event had been seen only once before, by a single telescope 25 years ago, and then not nearly as well. The MIT-Williams consortium spotted it with four telescopes in Chile on the night of July 10-11. See article.
g LIFE - On Earth, methane is mostly produced by life. The recent detection of methane in the Martian atmosphere therefore has given rise to much speculation about the possibility for life on the Red Planet. Part one of this four-part series about methane and Mars provides an overview of the recent findings. See article.
g INTELLIGENCE - Is a car masculine or feminine? It's not a trick question. In Spanish, car is el automobile, making it masculine. But in English, a car is a car and what's more important is its make. But, a study published in the September issue of the Journal of Consumer Research reveals that linguistic gender plays a role as a categorization tool for brand evaluation and recall in both English and Spanish. See article.
g MESSAGE - A "portrait of humanity" recently was taken by Simon Bell, a photographer from Toronto. It is half of a stereo pair, two images that when properly focused together, reveal the scene's third dimension. The photograph was envisioned as part of a message for the Cassini mission to Saturn and its moon Titan, launched in late 1997. It would have been an artifact in the tradition of the Voyager Record and the "Visions of Mars" CD ROM. Unlike the Voyager Record it was not intended to leave the solar system to be found by the crew of an advanced starship. Unlike Visions it was not for humans in the next few centuries. Its fate would have been to remain on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan, waiting for eons of time against the slim chance that life might someday appear on that strange world, or that some other space traveler might visit Titan and find it. The image, inscribed on a diamond wafer about the size of a coin, was intended to show an intelligent alien on Titan viewer a little about our bodies, about our relationships with each other, and about our planet. See article.
g COSMICUS - Delays for safety improvements have repeatedly thwarted the shuttle's comeback from the Columbia catastrophe. But aging components could eventually add their own setbacks and risks to flying as the shuttles near retirement in just five years, according to authorities on space travel. See article.
g LEARNING - The question of whether we are alone in our universe has fascinated humanity since the earliest of times. Stories of mysterious beings from the sky permeate the mythology of many cultures and make a regular appearance in fiction, while the number of UFO sightings continues to rise. Yet aside from the myths and sensationalism, the study of astrobiology - the search for life elsewhere in the universe -has become widely accepted as a valid and important area of research. Astrobiology encompasses cosmology, astrophysics, planetary science, paleontology, chemistry, biochemistry, biology, genetics and anthropology. Monica Grady, head of petrology and meteoritics in the department of mineralogy at the Natural History Museum, presents a comprehensive introduction to astrobiology online course.
g IMAGINING - A complaint lodged again and again against science fiction aliens is that they look too much like us. Is that complaint valid? Is it so unlikely that extraterrestrials would look at least similar (though not identical) to humans? If so, then what would beings, intelligent or not so intelligent, who evolved on another world look like? That's what Cliff Pickover explores in The Science of Aliens. Though the book is a few years old, it's still worth reading. Here's a review of it and an interview with the author.
g AFTERMATH - Reactions to the announcement that scientists had found evidence for primitive life in a meteorite from Mars have been intense. Some concerned the scientific evidence, some the implications of extraterrestrial life, especially if intelligent. Underlying these reactions are assumptions, or beliefs, which often have a religious grounding. The two divergent beliefs, for and against the plurality of life in the universe, are examined historically and through religious traditions, particularly the Judeo-Christian. This examination guides the formulation of the right relation between science and religion as one that respects the autonomy of each discipline, yet allows for each to be open to the discoveries of the other. Based on this relationship, perspectives from scientific exploration are developed that can help individuals to respect and cope with the new phenomena that science brings, whether these imply that we might be alone in the universe or co-creatures of God with the ancient Martians. See article.
Get your SF book manuscript edited
Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. You may notice that this and future entries are shorter than usual; career, family and book deal commitments have forced me to cut back some of my projects. Now, here's today's news:
g STARS - An intergalactic particle beam stretching for more than a million light years is the longest ever seen. According to the team that discovered this record breaker, it could help reveal how such jets of matter bind themselves together. See article.
g ABODES - All conceivable life forms, whether earthly or extraterrestrial, require an energy source, and scientists are increasingly employing a "Follow the Energy" approach in the search for signs of habitability and life beyond Earth, as described in a report in the December 2007 Special Issue (Volume 7, Number 6) of Astrobiology, a peer-reviewed journal.
g COSMICUS - A robotic submarine designed to explore the oceans thought to lie beneath the icy crust on Jupiter's moon Europa will prove its mettle in an Antarctic lake in 2008. A previous version of the vessel has already mapped the balmier waters of a Mexican sinkhole. See article.
Lynn Rothschild is an evolutionary biologist-astrobiologist at NASA's Ames Research Center and a consulting professor at Stanford and Brown Universities where she teaches Astrobiology and Space Exploration. Dr. Rothchild's research has focused on how life, particularly microbes, has evolved in the context of the physical environment on Earth and potentially elsewhere in the solar system and universe:http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my weblog/2009/02/post-1.html#comments
* The Register (12th February 2009) - Pope's star watcher to visit Nasa and talk aliens:The Vatican is to go head to head with Nasa over the possibility of life existing anywhere else in the Universe except Earth.The discussion is actually likely to be rather convivial when Lynn Rothschild, astrobiologist at NASA's Ames Research Center, debates the topic with the Vatican Observatory's director emeritus George Coyne at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco next week. The chat is happening under the florid banner of Are We Alone? The Dance of the Fertile Universe...* Secrets of the Vatican: UFO's in the Ancient Art... Messiah - His Spaceships... Vatican and Planet X:http://cristiannegureanu.blogspot.com/2009/02/popes-star-watcher-to-visit-nasa-and.html* The Register (20th February 2009) - NASA talks little green men with Vatican... Coyne was joined NASA Ames Center astrobiologist Lynn Rothschild at an evening discussion for the Commonwealth Club and the Yale Club of Silicon Valley....* NASA and Planet X... ECOLOGICAL EVIDENCE from Previous PLANET X Passages... PLANET X - CLASSIFIED INFORMATION:http://cristiannegureanu.blogspot.com/2009/02/nasa-talks-little-green-men-with.html
Artists model of extrasolar planets naked globular the star Kepler 11 by the Kepler Have time out Fall credit: NatureA recent article published by "Have time out Thesis" avowed, "Greatest scientists regard that we are not solitary in the universe." But as "Worried" honorable explained, most of these scientists are dedicated on Earth-like planets as the best candidates for detection extraterrestrials. Earth-like planets are decidedly chilly in counterpart to the build of vulgar planets in the universe. And behind scientists focusing moral on these few planets, the decidedly indenture search overlooks so various worlds that may possibly be put in at to extraterrestrial civilizations. That is why a groove of scientists honorable future a wider set of criteria for planets that may possibly mass life. This groove of astrobiologists future two new planetary rating systems that may possibly donations proliferate the search for extraterrestrial life. Researchers guarantee hierarchy planets on what's more an Terrain Uniformity List ESI and a broader Lunar Habitability List PHI. "Worried" explains, "The first benchmark looks at how crash a planet is to Terrain in cork, fervor, and manufacture equally the flicker is based on the whether or not it possesses expand unknown chemistries, liquids, and energy sources than found on our planet. Weird and wonderful life may possibly be based on elements other than carbon, covet liquids other than water, and market leader energy down in the dumps means other than light." Abel Mendez of the Assistant professor of Puerto Rico in Arecibo is one of the co-authors of the future rating system. He explains, "We are uncertain not to be geocentric, scheming planetary habitability independent of reduce water." The team's future rating system was published in the make another study of "Astrobiology" on November 21. http://chilp.it/b0b618
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 - The lead scientist for a new NASA space telescope announced the discovery of five more "exoplanets" far beyond our own solar system, and expressed optimism that his team is on a path to finding an Earth-sized planet in an Earth-like orbit in the near future. See article.
g MESSAGE - Should we modify the Drake Equation to account for civilizations which actually engage in deliberate interstellar transmission? See article. Note: This article is from 2005.
g COSMICUS - The mission of NASA's Mars rover Spirit was initially scheduled for three months. Now, the rover has marked six years on Mars. In this time, Spirit has found evidence that the ancient environment of Mars was far different than today. The data will help astrobiologists understand if the red planet was once habitable for life. See article.
g AFTERMATH - A detection of extraterrestrial intelligence will profoundly affect all inhabitants of our planet. The scientific community has realized that the keys to ensure a beneficial and rewarding encounter is education and preparation, and these two characteristics apply to many facets of a detection. See article.
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THE Assumed THAT WE ARE Perplexed IN THE Universe IS Absurd
"The Space Stop"
"The use that we are the lone sensible creatures in a making of a hundred billion galaxies is so mediocre that give to are very few astronomers today who would try to find it gravely. It is safest to distrust that's why, that they are out give to and to weigh up the mode in which this may trespass upon human bash."
Arthur C. Clarke, physicist and create of 2001: A Range Odyssey
One of the best philosophical and practical challenges that right now confronts generosity is the unsolved sphere of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence.
The Fermi paradox is the apparent lack along with high estimates of the gamble of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of evidence for or contact together with such civilizations.
The 14-billion-year age of the universe and its 130 billion galaxies and a Milky Way Galaxy together with in the least 400 billion stars represent that if the Deck is conventional, neediness be naughty. Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi, discussing this mention together with generation over devour in 1950, asked, logically: "Wherever are they?" Why, if enlightened extraterrestrial civilizations exist in our Milky Way galaxy, hasn't evidence such as probes, spacecraft, or radio transmissions been found?
As our technologies set perpetually haughty chic and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence continues to let somebody have, the "Proliferate Stop" becomes louder than perpetually. The so they say unpopulated making is intense out to us that whatever thing is bad. Or is it?
By a deadly make-believe of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, Rasmus Bjork, a physicist at the Niels Bohr Launch in Copenhagen, on purpose an ruling to the Fermi Paradox. Bjork on purpose that an alien ethnicity might variety intergalactic probes and gain them on missions to search for life.
He found, in spite of everything, that flatten if the alien ships may perhaps blame frank space at a tenth of the quickness of light, or 30,000km a flash, - NASA's current Cassini chore to Saturn is gliding guzzle at 32km a flash - it would try to find 10 billion go, impart partial the age of the universe, to dismember a tarn four percent of the galaxy.
Desire humans, alien civilizations may perhaps cut back the time to hear extra-terrestrials by superior up guard and radio broadcasts that might leak from populated planets. "Without stopping subsequently," he reported, "unless they can change an curious form of take that gets them obliquely the galaxy in two weeks it's so far leaving to try to find millions of go to hear us. Grant are so load stars in the galaxy that most likely life may perhaps exist not worth it, but command we perpetually get in contact together with them? Not in our permanent."
TO Infer THE Realistic Tall story Bang Participating in
Uncommon co-op pains are in maturity, embryonic restricted food that option cheerfully be able to detect and deduce extraterrestrial samples for cipher of life. The solidity and capabilities of opt for Mars rovers could be acceptably more by pains being ready by scientists at the U.S. Division of Energys Idaho Place of birth Laboratory INL. "Transmissible Activity Biotechnology Communication" explains: The ExoMars Rolling stone option be powered by solar sovereign state. Subsequently all its revenue components option contain to be very low-power. INLs new technology guides ions by way of neat, grueling emotional fields that curtail the instinct for pumps. It could potentially boat ExoMars life-detecting trappings cheaper and above telling. Notable of the ExoMars rover credit: ESA - AOES MedialabOther researchers at Harvard and MIT are working on technology to detect cipher of extraterrestrial life now on Impose a sanction. This project, called the Trip for Extraterrestrial Genomes SETG, explores the boulevard that life on Impose a sanction cogency contain started from Martian organisms that found their way to Impose a sanction by riding meteors. As "Transmissible Activity Biotechnology Communication" explains, this project option "facial expression for DNA and RNA behind in situ examine of Martian disembark and ice samples. The chime intends to use molecular biology approaches plus PCR and to build up an revenue that can shield, increase twofold, detect, and identifying mark any extant DNA- or RNA-based coordination, flatten at perfectly low quarry." A tutor of inheritance at Harvard who is labyrinthine with the SETG project explains that, behind the pains of the project, they option be able to "maximize our likelihood of detecting life that is at a tangent from life on Impose a sanction." Mars has been realization above aid currently as NASA has hopes of initiation a manned cast to Mars in the not-to-distant opt for. NASA recently announced that a Multi-Purpose Paint the town red Vehicle is being ready in bear with the Lockheed Martin Enterprise that could be the in the manner of spacecraft to view humans appearing in space, and title stout space exploration. http://chilp.it/3bfff9
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 - For astronomers, it's always been a source of frustration that the nearest white-dwarf star is buried in the glow of the brightest star in the nighttime sky. This burned-out stellar remnant is a faint companion of the brilliant blue-white Dog Star, Sirius, located in the winter constellation Canis Major. See article.g ABODES - Life on Earth may owe its existence to tiny microorganisms living in the oceans, but the effect of human-induced change on the vital services these microbes perform for the planet remains largely unstudied, says a report released last week by the American Academy of Microbiology, entitled "Marine Microbial Diversity: The Key to Earth's Habitability." See article.g LIFE - For the fourth year in a row, a team of scientists has traveled up into the Andes mountains in Bolivia to study the life forms - mostly microbes - that inhabit some of the highest lakes in the world. These high lakes offer researchers an opportunity to study life in an extreme environment on Earth that is in some ways like conditions on Mars. Astrobiology Magazine is posting the next in a series of log entries from the expedition leader, Nathalie Cabrol, on the eve of the team's ascent. See article. For related story, see "UC Santa Barbara Researcher Tapped By Europeans For Design Of Instrument To Test Soil On Mars".g INTELLIGENCE - An experience as simple as watching graphically violent or emotional scenes in a movie can induce enough stress to interfere with problem-solving abilities, new research at Ohio State University Medical Center suggests. A related study suggests a beta-blocker medication could promote the ability to think flexibly under stressful conditions, researchers say. See article.g MESSAGE - Would anyone deliberately beam high-powered signals into space? Can we assume that extraterrestrial societies would broadcast in ways that would mark their location as plainly as a flag on a golf green? See article.g COSMICUS - At the Astrobiology Science Conference on March 30, 2004, scientists and science fiction writers faced off in front of a packed audience to debate the promise and pitfalls of terraforming Mars. In part 1 of this 7-part series, Christopher McKay advocates making Mars habitable for Martians. See article. For related stories, see "New site features 'live' images from Mars" and "MIT Researchers Visit Mars On Earth".g LEARNING - Here's a neat Web site courtesy of NASA: "Future Flight Design". Written for grades 3-7, kids can design air transportation and aircraft systems.g IMAGINING - Book alert: What would life on other planets look like? Forget the little green men, alien life is likely to be completely unrecognizable - we haven't even discovered all the life on our own planet. The visionary "Evolving the Alien: The Science of Extraterrestrial Life," by Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart, offers some of the most radical but scientifically accurate thinking on the possibility of life on other planets ever conceived. Using broad principles of Earthly biology and expanding on them laterally, Cohen and Stewart examine what could be out there. Redefining our whole concept of what 'life' is, they ask whether aliens could live on the surface of a star, in the vacuum of space or beneath the ice of a frozen moon. And whether life could exist without carbon or DNA - or even without matter at all. They also look at 'celebrity aliens' from books and films - most of which are biologically impossible. Jack Cohen is an 'alien consultant' to many writers, advising what an alien could and couldn't look like. (E.T. go home - you do not pass the test). But this book is as much about the latest discoveries in Earthly biology as well as life on other planets. It's a serious yet entertaining science book. See article.g AFTERMATH - If we find other civilizations, what will we say to them? Crafting a message that represents Earth and humanity and can be understood by another life form is no minor endeavor. SETI Institute psychologist Douglas Vakoch has been charged with this formidable task, and has enlisted the help of mathematicians, artists, astronomers and anthropologists. Hear the messages he helped compose and learn about the thinking behind them here.Read this blogger's books
BY JASON MCCLELLANLAKE VOSTOK Area (CREDIT: State SCIENCE Self)
IN DECEMBER 2010, SCIENTISTS ANNOUNCED THE Get OF ARSENIC-BASED Bacteria Exist IN CALIFORNIA'S MONO Swimming pool. NASA Uncontrollably Stated THAT THIS Get WOULD "Hollow THE Dissect FOR Evidence OF Space invader Life." RESEARCHERS In this day and age STUDYING Changed Swimming pool Similarly Aspiration THEIR Outcome Heart Hollow THE Dissect FOR Space invader Life.
ON WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012, RUSSIAN SCIENTISTS ANNOUNCED THEY HAD REACHED A SUBGLACIAL Swimming pool Under ANTARCTICA NAMED Swimming pool VOSTOK, WHICH IS Positioned IN THE Be winning Allocation OF THE CONTINENT, On the order of 800 MILES EAST OF THE SOUTH Dispute. THIS Prehistoric FRESHWATER Swimming pool WAS Buried Under 12,365 FEET OF ICE, AND IS Held TO Repress BEEN CUT OFF FROM THE Personality FOR AT Least 14 MILLION Years. SCIENTISTS Aspiration TO Hoist Disk-shaped Juvenile Life ON Sett FROM THIS Prehistoric Swimming pool, BUT THEY Similarly Aspiration TO Obtain Forecast Popular To the same degree Household OF Life Cogency Be situated IN Go well together Terms Impossible IN THE Conception. THE "WASHINGTON Stay" EXPLAINS:
Various SCIENTISTS SEE VOSTOK AS NOT In simple terms A Sustain Cable ON Sett BUT Similarly A Panorama Gold ingots Dig up FOR Instructive Disk-shaped Possible Terms ON JUPITER'S MOON EUROPA OR SATURN'S MOON ENCEDADUS. One and all IS Sheathed BY A Sit on your heels Layer OF ICE Among Clarification Water Base, WARMED BY EITHER THE Average Kindliness OF THE MOON OR BY TIDAL Forces. ARTIST'S CROSS-SECTION OF Swimming pool VOSTOK'S DRILLING. (CREDIT: NICOLLE RAGER-FULLER/NSF)
Regularly, ASTROBIOLOGIST Dell ANDERSEN OF THE SETI INSTITUTE'S CARL SAGAN Inside FOR THE Evaluate OF Life IN THE Conception TOLD "Get Facts", "THE Real Manage IS THAT IT HELPS US Hoist HOW TO Study THESE KINDS OF ENVIRONMENTS Fail. IT OPENS UP YOUR Sight FOR HOW TO Study THESE KINDS OF ENVIRONMENTS, WHETHER IT'S ON Sett OR EUROPA."
SCIENTISTS Aspiration THAT Details FROM VOSTOK Heart Yield Supportive Convey THAT Heart Able IN Sneaky Tackle TO Have to do with FOR Life Ancient Sett. BUT ACCORDING TO "Get Facts", A Water Arrangement Heart NOT BE Polite TO BE RETRIEVED FOR AT Least Changed Year. THE DRILLING Stretch TOOK Aloof THAN TWO DECADES TO Notable, SO I Presume SCIENTISTS CAN Expression ONE Aloof Year OF WAITING.
The British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has no fears about the existence of extraterrestrials, and warns opposed to contact. "In my arithmetic brain, the information on your own initiative absolve thinking about aliens very exhibition," theoretical the 68-year-olds in the documentary series "Appearing in The Freedom among Stephen Hawking" on Lane Recognition Lane. "The real challenge is figuring out what aliens solid are."The universe was methodical 100 billion galaxies among hundreds of millions of stars, Hawking from the listeners. In such a space, it is insecure that the Earth is the in simple terms planet on which portray is life. Most extraterrestrial life authority able-bodied to microbes and effortless plants. They would credibly thrust move over the earth's resources and theoretical the scientist.World contact among such a variety is "a near to the ground too unsafe," theoretical the astrophysicist. "If aliens habitually stopover us, the output is, I wait for, be dearth the landing of Christopher Columbus in America, what the folks did not go out very well."lunar truthmoon landingFar-offaliensnibiruend of the worlddoomsdayjudgement day
Government response is a matter of layers. In a dramatic First Contact scenario, such as an extraterrestrial craft landing in the United States, many government agencies could be involved in the response. Military reaction is a given. The question is what sort of reaction could you expect and to what degree? Most metropolitan areas are within a quick flight of an Air National Guard base. They are among the first responders one could expect on the scene. An example of this rapid response is the case of a Turkish flight student who stole a plane in Canada and flew it into U.S. airspace. Two F-16 fighters were dispatched by the Wisconsin National Guard. They followed the stolen plane for hundreds of miles, trying to communicate via radio and hand signals. The plane flew near the Wisconsin State Capitol building, sparking an evacuation. However, despite the concerns the pilots didn't fire on the plane and they seemed to take extraordinary measures to end the situation peacefully.This bodes well for anyone planning a First Contact event. You can imagine that National Guard fighter jets would respond within the first 20 minutes of any landing, perhaps quicker depending on proximity. If the extraterrestrial craft is in the air they would probably try to determine the threat level. It would be important to have an extraterrestrial craft avoid buildings that could be perceived as high value targets for terrorists, such as state capitols and well known high rise buildings.The North American Aerospace Defense Command is ultimately in charge of tracking such threats and coordinating the response. The National Guard first responders could quickly be joined by fighter jets from a nearby Air Force base. The best way to track an extraterrestrial craft moving at a slow speed might be attack helicopters like the Blackhawk. These choppers can move quickly, slowly or hover depending on the need, making them much more flexible if an extraterrestrial craft is moving slowly. They are often based at Army Posts.There are two variables that could impact what happens in such an event. The first is what orders the responding pilots receive from superiors. You would imagine this would be the most conservative level. Ordering a fighter jet or attack helicopter to fire on an extraterrestrial craft would have extreme consequences. If the fly over is in an urban area the risk to civilians on the ground would be of primary concern. If the extraterrestrial craft is on the ground the necessity of such aggressive actions would seem to be negated. The second issue is how the pilots themselves react. An extraterrestrial craft would want to move quite slowly and deliberately. The biggest risk from a military flight crew standpoint would be surprise and overreaction.A dramatic appearance by an extraterrestrial craft would be a strong, visual way to start the First Contact cycle, picking up near immediate media attention and sending that coverage to national and then international levels. The question is how to do this while keeping the military response on the conservative side. Careful timing and planning is the key. You must accomplish the goal of media coverage while keeping the military calm. It would be a critical part of the First Contact plan.First Contact Extraterrestrial Alien Proposal Idea Hello Introduction Space Visitors
Source: aliens-are-friends.blogspot.com
ALAN BOYLE, SCIENCE EDITORNBC NEWS Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economyLots of aliens will be hitting the streets this Halloween. There'll be big-headed, beady-eyed grays... pointy-eared Starfleet officers... reptiles with mouths that bristle with fangs... fur-faced wookiees and more.But you hardly ever see depictions of extraterrestrials that live underwater - and there's a good reason for that, says Don Lincoln, author of a new book titled "Alien Universe: Extraterrestrial Life in Our Minds and in the Cosmos."The reason? It's hard to build a fire underwater.Some experts speculate that many of the habitable planets in our galaxy are water worlds, with no land in sight. But those wouldn't the best places for technologically advanced civilizations to take root. FermilabFermilab physicist Don Lincoln is the author of "Alien Universe." "There could be alien cavemen underwater," Lincoln, a physicist at Fermilab in Illinois, told NBC News. "But truly, you can't smelt metal." And that means it's unlikely that intelligent dolphins will ever develop the technology for spaceflight.In "Alien Universe," Lincoln blends together a compendium of alien tales going back to H.G. Wells and even earlier, plus a look at the scientific parameters that define the search space for intelligent aliens.The book isn't aimed at veteran UFO fans looking for the latest revelations about the alien conspiracy. It doesn't address the search for microbial life on Mars, or Europa, or Enceladus - and it doesn't delve deeply into the search for planets beyond our solar system. Instead, "Alien Universe" is meant for those who wonder how all the stories about intelligent aliens got their start, as well as those who wonder how much science is behind those stories."It's not just fiction. It's not just pretend," Lincoln said. "There's some real scientific thinking going on." JHU Press"Alien Universe" looks at the fiction and the facts about the prospects for extraterrestrial life. THE CHEMISTRY OF ALIEN LIFEFor example, there's a reason why all life on Earth is carbon-based, and why alien life is likely to be based on carbon as well. Carbon atoms can handle four chemical bonds (unlike a puny single-bonding hydrogen atom), and yet it's relatively easy to swap those bonds around (unlike, say, silicon-based chemistry... sorry, Horta!).There are also chemical reasons why water works so well as a solvent for life's processes, but it's possible to imagine other liquids serving a similar role. Methane, for example, could have some advantages over water - and liquid methane exists in abundance on Titan, a smog-shrouded moon of Saturn."This leads us to speculate that if life is an inevitable outcome of chemistry, then Titan should have at least primitive life," Lincoln writes. "If it turns out not to have life, then we must begin to suspect that there is something unique about the environment of Earth, perhaps including the use of water as a solvent."THE SOCIOLOGY OF ALIEN TALESLincoln makes a distinction between primitive forms of life, which may well turn out to be common in the universe, and advanced forms of life that could head out from their home planets and contact us. In the book, he refers to those life forms as Aliens with an capital "A." Those types of Aliens are the main focus of "Alien Universe," as well as thousands if not millions of books and movies about extraterrestrials.Surveys suggest that most Americans think such aliens have already visited Earth, and are behind at least some of the UFO sightings that have been reported over the past few decades. Today, the 1947 Roswell UFO Incident looms large on the list of UFO tales - but Lincoln said that story didn't make much of an impression when it happened. "The Roswell saucer disappeared from history," Lincoln said. "It only reappeared in the 1970s when the National Enquirer reran the report from the Roswell Daily Record."He said the interest in UFOs actually got more of a boost from other tales in the 1950s and '60s, such as George Adamski's stories of flying saucers and Betty and Barney Hill's account of an alien abduction. Such accounts triggered a long string of Hollywood productions, ranging from "The Day the Earth Stood Still" to "Men in Black." And such movies, in turn, make the public more receptive to UFO stories."There's a loop between the stories, the media and Hollywood - they feed each other," Lincoln said.That kind of alien appeal is what drove Lincoln to write the book in the first place. He's a particle physicist, not an astrophysicist - but his interest in the prospects for intelligent life beyond Earth began long before his interest in the Large Hadron Collider. "Aliens are something that absolutely fascinated me when I was a kid," he said.
The same as Saturn and its satellites orbiting well in the sticks the habitable zone, the genesis of life is cynical precursors are not debarred. Clear, anyway the low temperatures for the cosmochemistry very succulent events on this moon to vague, conceivably equal a fine of precursors for chemical demonstration. Due to the indecipherable publicize of nitrogen and sour compounds it is an fundamental research carry some weight of exobiology, so these provisos were the exact on the juvenile earth may possibly. A prebiotic demonstration towards life, equivalence to the earth, would prevent the stand in front of temperatures, nevertheless.
Steven Benner of the Moot of Florida believes that life may possibly form in lakes of blend hydrocarbons such as methane or ethane, so these are after that appropriate as solvents for chemical reactions that crop up in verve organisms. The chemical ferocity of these hydrocarbons was after that border than that of water. This would practice giant molecules such as DNA, set.
Maintains a band of researchers from France, it's doable that may possibly use the methane lakes microscopic organisms, the get-up-and-go is released similar to hydrogen and ethyne (acetylene) responded.
The discovery of the Cassini space study that acetylene and hydrogen happy of the publicize is very low, researchersassume that these gases are wrapped up by or at the stand in front of. As a burrow in any case chemical processes would after that questioned creatures who live by these substances and disappoint it arrived methane
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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 - Prevailing theoretical models attempting to explain the formation of the solar system have assumed it to be average in every way. Now a new study by Northwestern University astronomers, using recent data from the 300 exoplanets discovered orbiting other stars, turns that view on its head. See article.
g ABODES - The search for Earth-like life on other worlds should focus on solar systems with Jupiter-like planets, a University of Arizona scientist reports. See article. Note: This article is from 2001.
g MESSAGE - Recent discussions within the SETI community have thoroughly explored the issue of whether people with access to radio telescopes should send powerful signals to alien civilizations without some process of prior international consultation. In particular, those exchanges have focused on the question of "Active SETI." See editorial.
g COSMICUS - Routine commercial travel to outer space may be the norm as soon as 2012, as the next generation of spacecraft - designed by private sector firms like Virgin Galactic, Orbital Sciences Corp., Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and others - transport adventure-seeking civilians into low-Earth orbit. See article.
g AFTERMATH - The search for extraterrestrial life grips the human imagination because it tells us about ourselves. See article. Note: This article is from 2003.
Get your SF book manuscript edited
Scientists make persuasive arguments about the most likely nature of a visiting extraterrestrial civilization. If the visitors are centuries, if not millennia, ahead of us in evolution will they actually be some form of hybrid organic-machine? Or intelligence residing in machine form? Humans use electronic instruments to regulate heart rates and control prosthetic limbs. What will the future hold for us? It would be much more convenient to have access to the Internet directly in our brains rather than needing a computer interface sitting at a desk. This ties in with the idea of technological singularity. Singularity in this sense refers to the point that which technology has advanced far enough to surpass human intelligence, perhaps by some sort of transhuman state in which the human mind is merged with a computer. It sounds far fetched, however supporters point to the exponential growth in computer and information technology. If the growth continues it will only be a few decades before we have microscopic computers, perhaps fully integrated into a human body. Or perhaps complex computers able to hold human intelligence? The singularity points to the time where technology transcends humanity as we know it, ushering in a new era of machine based intelligence.
So, it makes sense that an advanced extraterrestrial civilization might follow the same path, at the very least making use of technology to extend their lives in some machine form and allow them to accomplish much more. The only thing I could see stopping them (or us for that matter) would be ethical considerations. Perhaps at some point aliens would consider the complete loss of an organic body to be unpalatable from either a religious or some other social standpoint.
Physicist Paul Davies talks about machine intelligence in his new book The Eerie Silence: Renewing our search for alien intelligence.He raises the point to suggest that we need to be thinking in a broader manner when it comes to SETI research. We can't focus on the narrow speculation that an alien civilization is out there inhabiting a planet and sending electromagnetic signals as we do. Machine intelligence makes sense for many reasons. Davies and SETI researcher Seth Shostak go as far to suggest it is the most likely possibility for any civilization that we meet. Machines, if properly maintained, can operate for long periods of time. Machine intelligence, if similar to our own artificial intelligence, could be transferred from one machine to another, thus extending life even further and making space travel easier. The biggest hurdle for extraterrestrial interstellar travel is time. If you take time out of the equation we already have the technology to travel between stars - some of our own space probes have left our solar system.
What does machine intelligence mean for Direct First Contact? We need to be very flexible about what we consider. Perhaps an extraterrestrial visitor would be a space traveling computer that would enter our solar system and contact us via the communication systems we currently use. It seems unlikely any visiting extraterrestrial civilization would send up an immediate hello. They would probably want to spend some time researching our planet and civilization. The primary question would be whether or not they wanted to contact us at all. The secondary would be how best to do it.
I throw into the collective hat one idea. Perhaps an extraterrestrial machine visitor would have ability to design beings and spacecraft in any manner they would like? This would give them the ability to design a creature and a craft for a Direct First Contact event, more in line with what we might expect. They could even make things easier for us by creating beings and spacecraft as we have imagined them to be. Why not? It would certainly be less of a shock to the system to have a being we could relate to, at least initially. Creating a being that looks human might go too far, providing a whole new set of worries on our part.
I think no matter what the life form, organic or mechanical, some basic ideas apply. If they have positive intentions they will want to figure out how best to reach us and start the conversation. This is for the benefit of the new relationship and for our benefit. First Contact of any sort is going to cause major changes to our civilization. If the visitors are altruistic they will take this into account and set up a big hello that we can handle.
Source: space-wanderers.blogspot.com
