Monthly Archives: April 2016

Propulsion Methods

Posted on April 25, 2016 by siyuan2016

Image Source In the class, we talk about the measures to accelerate spacecraft and satellites that one day may make interstellar travel possible for humans in their lifetime. And in this blog I would like to introduce some other practical and hypothetical propulsion methods. The first method is a practical one called ion thruster, a […] Continue reading →

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Drake Equation

Posted on April 25, 2016 by martisnv

One of the most interesting things that we have covered this semester is the Drake Equation. This equation uses probability to estimate the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy. What I like most about this … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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Where is everyone?

Posted on April 25, 2016 by sarabkeller

This past couple weeks, we spent time looking in-depth at the Drake equation, a hypothetical equation that uses estimation to “calculate” how many communicating civilizations there likely should be within any one galaxy. Using accepted values for each variable within the Drake equation, this number is roughly 30 for one galaxy. That number multiplied by the […] Continue reading →

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Half Empty or Half Full?

Posted on April 24, 2016 by impossibleensign

Fermi’s paradox has some unsettling points depending on how you see the glass. Continue reading →

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God the Engineer of Life?

Posted on April 23, 2016 by jacquessolar

In Lawrence M. Krauss’s piece in the New Yorker, No, Astrobiology Has Not Made the Case for God, he responds to an article entitled Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God published in the Wall Street Journal by Eric Metaxas. In Metaxas’ piece, he writes about how miraculous and statistically infinitesimal the likelihood that life […] Continue reading →

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Blog 9 (The Unlikelihood of Intelligent Life)

Posted on April 21, 2016 by astronomer0110

Based on current scientific evidence, asteroids could have spread organic molecules to Earth and many other planets throughout the universe. In all likelihood, there are many organic molecules on most of the planets in the habitable zones of their galaxies, and it definitely seems possible that with all these organic molecules, some kind of primitive […] Continue reading →

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The Drake Equation

Posted on April 21, 2016 by HB

  The Drake Equation has been one of the most interesting things that I have learned about so far in this course. The video I have linked above does a very good job summarizing the different parts of the Drake Equation and how they are calculated. Towards the end of the video, it also talks … Continue reading The Drake Equation → Continue reading →

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The Drake Equation

Posted on April 21, 2016 by HB

  The Drake Equation has been one of the most interesting things that I have learned about so far in this course. The video I have linked above does a very good job summarizing the different parts of the Drake Equation and how they are calculated. Towards the end of the video, it also talks … Continue reading The Drake Equation → Continue reading →

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How did life get started on Earth?

Posted on April 18, 2016 by danielicopeland

Well unfortunately no one knows for sure. The most prehistoric life that has ever been discovered, called stromatolites in Australia, can be dated back to 3.4 billion years ago. This life however is fairly evolved; it has cell walls and DNA (the more evolved version of RNA which still transmits the software for life today). […] Continue reading →

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Psychrophile Style

Posted on April 17, 2016 by hallesolar

Among the many types of extremophiles that can live in extreme conditions, psychrophiles are microorganisms that thrive in cold environments. We actually have a lot of psychrophiles in a variety of landscapes throughout Earth, including Anthrobacter, a bacteria found in soil, and Psychrobacter, which can live in many sets of conditions and can cause human ailments. […] Continue reading →

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