The Continuing Search for Intelligent Life

With the elections only a two days away, I started to think about intelligent life elsewhere (if only because I was wondering about its presence locally).  The discovery last month of a planet in the "inhabitable zone" of the Gliese 581 red dwarf star system provided the scientific community (and the rest of us) with some further evidence that we are not necessarily the only location for life.  This new planet, discovered using the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, is three times the mass of Earth and believed to have a rocky surface that is tidally locked to the star, meaning that one side is always facing the star.

If you recall the Drake Equation, it estimates the likelihood of finding intelligent life elsewhere in the Milky Way.  One of these factors ("L" from below) is the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.

The equation calculates "L" at about 10,000 years.  Astronomer Carl Sagan had his doubts about a civilization reaching this point and not destroying itself, whereas Astrobiologist David Grinspoon was somewhat more optimistic.  In an Astrobiology Magazine article, Grinspoon states:

AM: You say that because life and its biosphere are so intertwined, it may not be possible to have an individual definition for "life."

DG: I suspect that life can only survive on a planet for billions of years if it has become deeply embedded in the geochemical, physical, and climatic cycles of that planet in a way that stabilizes the environment. If this is the case, life will not be found in isolated, discontinuous pockets on a mostly dead world, but will always, as on Earth, permeate its planet.

I think of life not as something that happens on a planet, but as something that happens to a planet. Life is a quality that the planet takes on. And it might be something that sticks and lasts through huge environmental and physical changes, as it has on Earth.

AM: You also state that humans may be the biosphere's way of gaining consciousness and self awareness, and that we are at the very beginning of this evolution.

DG: We don't know how hard it is for a planet to evolve a biosphere, or to become a "living world," but once it gets to that state, I would bet that such biospheres survive for billions of years. So they would last for much of the lifetime of their planet's parent star, and occasionally longer.

Stars have a limited life span. Stars like our sun, for instance, burn out after 10 billion years. After that, life on any habitable planets orbiting that star will go extinct. So if you want to outlive your star of birth, you will need to become complex and sentient and comfortable with space travel. Your biosphere must wake up and consciously choose survival, as Earth's is now attempting to do through the clumsy human experiment.

I hope we are smart enough to figure all of this out so we can live long and prosper.  In the meantime, we will  keep up the search for intelligence at home and abroad.

Chile and NASA

I am very happy, like everyone else, that the Chilean miners were safely brought to the surface after the mine collapse.  And the United States played a big role, including devising the drill-head used to burrow down to the miners' location.  In addition, NASA also a role by sharing information on how to survive in a hostile environment, as is the case on the International Space Station.  NASA also assisted with the design of the capsule that pulled the miners to safety.  Visit the NASA page for a small clip from Dr. Michael Duncan, deputy chief medical officer in NASA's Space Life Sciences Directorate at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, who led the team assisting the Chilean authorities with the rescue.  I would like to see more of this sharing so that we can demonstrate that an international station can assist the world with a variety of issues.  I would rather see this than another Tang product on our store shelves.

The End of This Week in Space

Just yesterday, Miles O'Brien from This Week in Space announced the end of his podcast show.  I wrote about this show last January when it started and I have enjoyed it ever since.  Miles took on the project after leaving CNN when the news network laid off its scientific staff (yes, real brilliant).  He now has a new role as the science correspondent on PBS's Newshour.  Miles noted that This Week in Space has been a "labor of love" that no longer pays the bills.  I liked the fact that he tried this new podcast format, and the quality and guests certainly increased over time.  Miles noted in his final broadcast that the show may return at some point in the future.  I hope it does.  In the meantime, I recommend subscribing to the podcast on iTunes or view is on YouTube.  You can also visit Miles O'Brien's page for updates on his show and his career.  I wish him the very best.

New NASA Images Available

NASA recently started a partnership with Flickr Commons, called NASA on the Commons, that expands public access to the Agency's many photos of the space program.  For instance, the photo to the right, showing former President Johnson as he watches the launch of Apollo 11 on July 16, 1969, is from this new site.

This is just one of many vehicles for getting photos out to the rest of us.  In addition to NASA's own webpage, the Agency also created NASAimages.org, which has photographs and films related to the space program.  To date, the collection is more extensive than NASA on the Commons.

To the left is one of the photos from NASA.images.org.  This August 2006 photo shows astronaut Jeffrey N. Williams, Expedition 13 NASA space station science officer and flight engineer, as he is photographed during a almost 6 hour excursion that he shared with European Space Agency astronaut Thomas A. Reiter.

Such photos, combined with the various IMAX films shown around the country, can hopefully stimulate additional interest in space as the President and Congress chart the future of our space program.  We have much to be proud of and I look forward to many more fascinating photos on these websites.