I'm doing another report, this time on the possibility of life on other planets (Europa for one). Is there?

Question

If you know anything about the Drake Equation, please share your knowledge. If you've heard of any scientific theories (NOT YOUR OWN =P) that are relative to this topic, please share those too. I have to do a presentation on this, so it'd be nice if I knew what I was talking about. Are there any sites you can provide that would help? Thanks!

-Kay

Answer 1

Here is the drake equation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation
The drake equation doesn't prove anything because almost all of the inputs are unknown and are only guessed. But even if you put in the smallest numbers just for an experiment, the equation's results say that there are millions of civilizations out there.

We don't know yet if there is life on Europa but NASA sure wants to find out. Europa isn't a planet it's a moon that goes around the planet Jupiter. The moon is completely covered in ice and underneath the ice is a liquid water ocean, they know it's liquid water underneath because where the ice cracks liquid water comes up and freezes. Life could be there because there is life on earth underneath the polar icecaps. There is also life deep in the earth's oceans that live off of energy from thermal vents, not energy from the sun. So if there is life elsewhere we will probably find it first on Europa. NASA's planning on going there, here is a website about it:

http://www.resa.net/nasa/europa_life.htm

Answer 2

Here's the skinny on the Drake Equation...

When the Drake Equation was first formulated, there really hadn't been any serious attempt to make a scientific case for life elsewhere. Astrobiology was (and in some ways still is) seen as kind of a non-serious, even crackpot, sub-field of astronomy and biology. Before, the prospect of life existing elsewhere was mostly just speculation and hearsay. The Drake Equation was pretty groundbreaking in that regard.

Drake created the equation as the organizing theme for a conference on the subject of extraterrestrial life. Participants at the conference were categorized according to which variable their work most related to. Its original intention wasn't really to contribute to the body of scientific knowledge, but it's become probably the most central idea in astrobiology.

N = R* • fp • ne • fl • fi • fc • L

The design of the equation is that it breaks down something very hard to estimate into pieces that are much easier to estimate. We have a pretty solid idea of what the star formation rate is, have a good idea of how many stars have planets, have a vague idea of how many Earth like planets there are per star, and so on until we have no idea what the average lifetime of a technological civilization is.

Drake figured (pretty naively) that all of R*, fp, ne, on to fc must all be pretty close to one. That is, the star formation rate is one per year, all stars have planets, each planetary system has one Earth, and all Earths eventually develop technological civilizations. That leaves you with
N = L
which is to say that the number of civilizations in the Galaxy is equal to the average lifetime of a technological civilization in years. Supposedly Drake was pretty enamored with this idea, so much so that he got vanity license plates reading "N EQLS L".

I imagine you're already familiar with any theories that I might bring up, or will be soon, so I'll just mention some references that I think would be valuable to for writing your report. These will go into much of the relevant theories. First is the Origins resource site on PBS.org: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/origins/ . If you can actually watch Origins, I'd recommend that too. I don't think it's airing anytime soon, but you can find the DVDs in most public libraries, or you can buy them online if you really want them and are willing to shell out for it. The second is "Life in the Universe" by Bennett, Shostak and Jakosky, probably also available in your local library. This is a small textbook that tells you basically everything you might want to know about astrobiology and extraterrestrial life. It's very ready and nicely illustrated. Finally, check out the NASA Astrobiology Institute site: http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/students/index.cfm .

I hope that helps. Good luck on your report.

Answer 3

Do you know about the subterranean spring in Idaho which is the best know model on earth for the most probable Martian environment for life?
NASA scientists modeled the probable location for water in the Martian crust, then matched the criteria for a place on Earth.
They traveled there and sampled the indigenous lifeforms in the Idaho Spring, and the results are on the Internet somewhere, including actual species names..

Answer 4

a possible planet with life only 20 light years away
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070424_hab_exoplanet.html

I believe the drake equation is short sighted and generalized. Its really only for carbon based humanoids. any other type of life could changed the drake equation

Answer 5

I realy don't know