Extraterrestrial life

Paul Scott Anderson writes: We know that life originated on Earth some 3.7 billion years ago. But we still don’t understand exactly how life came to be. Likewise, we know little to nothing about life on other rocky worlds, even those that might be similar to Earth. Is life a rare occurrence, or is it common? Or somewhere in between? Scientists debate the subject of abiogenesis, the idea of life arising from non-living material. If it can happen on Earth, can it happen elsewhere, too? A new paper from retired astrophysicist Daniel Whitmire at the University of Arkansas argues that it can. Whitmire published his new peer-reviewed paper in the International Journal of Astrobiology on September 23, 2022. Abiogenesis and our own existence Basically, the paper is a counter-argument to the view held Read More ›

Frank Drake, the radio astronomer who pioneered the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), died yesterday (2 September) at the age of 92. Born on 28 May 1930 in Chicago, Drake was working at the Green Bank Radio Telescope during the early days of radio astronomy, in the late 1950s, when he was inspired by Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison’s famous 1959 paper in Nature about using radio transmissions at 21cm wavelength to communicate across interstellar distances. Encouraged by the director of Green Bank, Otto Struve, Drake conducted the first ever radio SETI search in April 1960. Called Project Ozma, the search utilised the 26-metre dish at Green Bank to scan two nearby stars, epsilon Eridani and tau Ceti, for extraterrestrial Read More ›