Drake Equation Essay

Because new technology is being created every day, Douglas Vakoch (director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI) seems to think that the confirmation of extraterrestrial life is not far away: “’ [T]he chances are getting better with every passing year’,” Vakoch said in an interview with Space.com. He added that “’within the next decade, we may well discover we’re not alone in the universe.’” And while the life that NASA discover may not be the equivalent of the aliens seen in “Star Wars,” it will be bacterial and microbial life nonetheless. This may be true, but there are still people who doubt the existence of interstellar life despite technological advancements. The Fermi Paradox, named after physicist Enrico Fermi, exists solely disprove the reality of aliens. The basic gist of this theory proposes that because there are so many possible Earth like planets, it is probable that aliens are developing or have developed a method of interstellar travel, (as NASA is attempting now). Even with the size of the Milky Way, Fermi says that it could be easily traversed in a few million

Throughout history humanity has been fascinated by the existence of extraterrestrial life. Today such ventures are in the development process and the discovery of life beyond our solar system, no matter how primitive, may soon become a huge(important?) scientific breakthrough. The three basic things that are required to consider a place even remotely habitable are water, a source of energy, and organic materials. Habitability also depends on other factors that must also be taken into consideration such as how close the planet is to its star (in the case of our solar system, the sun), how long the water and organic materials existed there, and the size and mass of the planet. One must not confuse habitable with inhabited. The term

In this paper I will explain how astronomers determine the composition, temperature, speed, and rotation rate of distant objects using various methods. I will explain the properties of stars. I will also summarize the complete lifecycle of the Sun and determine where the Sun is currently in its lifecycle.

Humans have been searching for a habitable extraterrestrial planet before Galileo even assembled the first telescope. Since then, we have identified 1030 extraterrestrial planets, but only an esteemed handful of these copious supply of planets would even permit the hardiest of bacteria and single-celled organisms, let alone intelligent life. Kepler-452b is one of the most speculated planets yet discovered because it orbits within the Goldilocks Zone, or the perfect distance from its star so that surface temperatures of the planet remain stable for liquid water, and thus for life. Given that it is 60% larger than earth, takes 385 days to orbit its star, Kelper-452b exhibits almost every desirable characteristic of a habitable planet. However, it is a jaw-dropping 6 billion years old, or 1.5 billion older that our own sun.

Exobiology is the science that is concerned with the search for life in outer space; it may be called as astrobiology as well. The search for life in outer space has consumed the imagination of the humankind for long time ago. Nowadays, humankind has made a progress and found major discoveries in the quest for life existence in the universe and outer space because of the advancement of the technology. However, in the past, exobiology was considered as a science without a subject, where the people and other scientists laughed at and ridiculed the famous scientist and biologist Joshua Lederberg when he originated the term exobiology. Some people argue that life exists elsewhere in the universe, however, others believe that life only exist on Earth. A new study reveals that our galaxy, the Milky Way, has 100 billion or so stars, where 17 billion of them are Earth-size alien planets, and probably many more. The huge size of the galaxy increases the probability of life existence in the outer space. Are we alone in the universe? This question has captured the imaginations of scientist, theologians, and astrobiologists. However, they don’t know the answer yet. Understanding the complete definition of life and how life originated, and determining the techniques used for searching for life existence in outer space and evidences found can help to answer the question of “Are we alone in the universe?”

As a member that is part of the UC’s Lick Observatory “Planet Hunter Team, I have found a possible planetary system that may contain a planet. From my further research, I discovered that the planet may support life, such as bacteria and plants. After confirming with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute about intelligent life, I eventually decided to want to discuss intelligent life through a scientific process. I will use the Drake Equation to give us the possibility that intelligent life can emit signals to reveal any existence. The equation is given as N= R* x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x L. The calculations of each variables will help me understand what is being contributed into calculating the chance of any signals being detected and the calculated result will determined the conclusion of intelligent life existing. Nevertheless, this is just an estimation for the possibility of any life as the Drake Equation may or may not be as reliable as we may expect it to be.

Devin Lally Dr. Aaron Titus FYS 1100 Final Essay: Drake Equation The Drake Equation is a theorized equation used to estimate the number of intelligent, radio-communicative life in the Milky Way galaxy. The Drake Equation was written in 1961 by Frank Drake soon before he was going to attend and present at the “search for extraterrestrial intelligence” meeting or SETI. Drake pointed an 85 foot telescope1 at nearby stars and hoped for a response (Scoles).

Unimaginable numbers of earth-like planets, beacons on the outer edge of our solar system, a constant presence in space; these ideas seem as if they have been taken straight

Among the billions of stars in each galaxy, many have planets that revolve around them. At least a few are bound to be of the right size and have the correct spatial orientation with respect to their star to allow life to grow. We believe this because life exists on the Earth. Astronomers have concluded that there must be hundreds of billions of other stars with conditions approximating those of the sun. Therefore there could be a million earth like planets with advanced civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy alone (Stilley). It is very probable that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.

This equation would later be known simply as the Drake equation. As he describes all you need to do to determine life is to take the rate at which stars form in our galaxy and multiply it with the fraction of stars with planets, the average number of stars with planets that could potentially support life, the fraction of those that actually develop life, the fraction of life bearing planets that develop civilization, the fraction of civilized planets that have detectable signals, and finally the length of time a civilization might last. This all seems more easily said than done, and it was (Bennett, Jeffrey O). When first researching this equation many of the factors were not known, however now we actually have a pretty decent idea on what each of those numbers could be in our galaxy and these numbers are expected to be even more definite each year as our knowledge keeps growing. In fact, we know that most stars have planets and, judging off of our own atmosphere, the ability to sustain life on those planets are much higher than you’d expect. Even crazier than that? Scientist estimate about 100 billion possible life sustaining planets in our galaxy alone using the Drake equation. We also know that in 1995 the very first confirmed exoplanet was found. An exoplanet by definition is: “a planet that orbits a star outside of our solar system.” This planet is called 51 Pegasi b, but since its discovery astronauts were able to find hundreds and then thousands of others just like it. Discovering just how many exoplanets are in our solar system, as stated before, is nearly impossible. Scientists expect that each and every star in our milky way is home to about 1.6 orbiting planets. Nonetheless this is not the only equation we have to base our studies off of. Another scientist chose a different route in her research for extraterrestrial life (HEC:

The Drake Equation is used to estimate of the rate at which stars are born in the galaxy, the fraction of stars with planets, and the fraction of those planets on which life could originate, and so on. Although, by those calculations, there should be about 10,000 civilizations in our galaxy capable of interstellar communication. So, where are all the aliens? Extraterrestrial intelligence must exist somewhere in the universe, but we might not be able to communicate with each other because of complications such as different forms of communication, huge distances between each other, and/or they don’t want to talk back.

Astronomer Frank Drake wrote a simple equation designed to summarize the factors that would determine the number of civilizations we might contact. This equation is now known as the Drake equation, and in principle it gives us a simple way to calculate the number of civilization capable of interstellar communication that are currently sharing the Milky Way Galaxy with us.

If only human lives in the universe，it's kind of wasting space. Therefore, I definitely believe that there is some extraterrestrial life in our Milky Way galaxy. It is so hard to find extraterrestrial life. The earth appeared billions of years ago, but it takes so many years to have humans live on the earth. To compare the time, human is just living thousands of years. So extraterrestrial life may be already extinct or not appear yet.

According to astronomical research and geological evidence, scientist indicate the universe is approximately thirteen thousand eight hundred and twenty billion years old. The first link to humanity started with a primate group called Ardipithecus. While our ancestors have been around for about six million years, the modern form of humans only evolved about two hundred thousand years ago. The age of the Earth is estimated about four point fifty four billion years because that is the age of the oldest rocks with fossil evidence of life on earth. The oldest rocks on Earth found to date are the Acasta Gneisses in northwestern Canada near the Great Slave Lake, which are four point three billion years old. The study of the origin of life on Earth, more specifically abiogenesis, is the natural process of life arising from non-living matter. Life on Earth is believed to have began from organic compounds about three point eight to four billion years ago. Despite several competing theories for how life arose on Earth scientist only know when life first appeared on Earth and are still far from answering how it appeared. Since it is hard to prove or disprove them, no fully accepted theories of the origin of life exists.

Based on the experimentation performed by physicists Alejandro Jenkins and Gilad Perez, there are four fundamental forces that enable life within our universe, without which humans would not exist. They consist of the strong nuclear force, electromagnetic force, gravity, and weak nuclear force. Because the other three forces are so vital to the existence of life, the two decided to eliminate the weak nuclear force and study the resulting possibilities via simulations and graphical reasoning. Their experiment created graphs showing two variables, one per axis. They showed that there is a “small range [within each variable that is] congenial to life” (Jenkins and Perez), and by combining two variables, the range supporting life increases. This means that if other universes do exist in an infinite quantity, as this theory asserts, the probability that intelligent life exists within them is high. Though not all possess conditions that support organic molecules