Space Time Stories

One of the reasons life survives on Earth is that we have a big brother protecting us from sterilizing events (asteroid bombardment).   Jupiter has been a powerful sink for asteroids that would have killed us all.  To find alien life in another system we should focus on those systems which have a large planet well [...]

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Speculation about life on Titan or other cold worlds is misguided because the chemical reaction rates are simply too slow.
All chemical reactions have a rate.  That rate has an exponential dependence on temperature as described by the Arrhenius equation.
rate = A exp (-Ea/kT)
Ea is the activation energy, k is Boltzmann’s constant, T is the temperature, [...]

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The SETI Institute will host Celebrating Science 2010 Family Science Faire Saturday May 22, 2010.
From their announcement:   At our Celebrating Science 2010 Family Science Faire, you will have the opportunity to meet SETI Institute scientists and discover what the future holds for SETI and astrobiology. Learn about the SETI Institute’s pioneering exploration [...]

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Interesting article in Science News about SETI:  Can you Hear me Now?

Related posts

Where to Find Alien Life (0)
Too cold for life (0)
SETI Institute Celebration (0)
More ideas on the Fermi Paradox (5)

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“Peering far beyond our solar system, NASA researchers have detected the basic chemistry for life in a second hot gas planet, advancing astronomers toward the goal of being able to characterize planets where life could exist. The planet is not habitable but it has the same chemistry that, if found around a rocky planet in [...]

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The basic argument of an atheist is “If there is a God then prove it, where is the evidence?  I can’t see him, I’ve never seen a miracle, there is no evidence of supernatural powers or beings.”  Replace those words with aliens and you get the exact same argument.  Anyone who argues against the existence [...]

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Work published in 2008 from Israel claims detection of element #122.  If true the implications are stunning.  The only possible method of generating element 122 is by artificial nucleosynthesis, a technical feat beyond the capability of modern day humans.
While subsequent study may have disproven the theory this opens up a new method of proving the [...]

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Many recent blog posts continue to try to explain the Fermi Paradox.  I’ll try to explain why these writers just don’t get it.
http://enfranchisedmind.com/blog/posts/the-fermi-paradox/
http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_9.html
http://www.entangledstates.org/2009/06/where-are-they-another-solution-to-fermis-paradox.html
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/23604/
http://www.wunderkabinett.co.uk/damndata/index.php?/archives/1796-Alternative-solutions-to-the-Fermi-paradox.html
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0408521v1
Many people still are confused on several points about the Fermi Paradox.  Let’s start with the name.
The word paradox is used because everyone “knows” it’s a “fact” that there are countless intelligent aliens [...]

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Optical SETI offers a much higher chance of finding a real signal because of the simple fact that there are no known natural sources of nanosecond pulses (or shorter).  Any 10 nanosecond pulse of light can only be from intelligent life (or of course a shocking new natural phenomenon).
Recently a researcher in Australia has detected [...]

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The Fermi Paradox allows for many explanations. One is that the human race encountered aliens in the past, we just don’t know about it. This anti-anthropocentric view does not offer an answer to the question “are they still here?”
If they came a long time ago then they probably went away bored. If [...]

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