the drake equation calculating the possibility of life
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The Drake Equation
Calculating the possibility of life
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A 360º photo of the Milky Way seen from Death Valley, USA.
Image and more details may be found at http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070508.html
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Is there life out there?
• Since the 1960’s astronomers have been trying to work out the probability of contacting extra-terrestrial life.
• To work out the overall probability we need to ‘guestimate’ the probability of a number of factors occurring.
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R*,the rate of formation of stars in our galaxy
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fp, the fraction of stars that have planets around them
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ne, the number of suitable planets in each planetary system
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fl the fraction of suitable planets which develop life
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fi the fraction of life-bearing planets which develop intelligent life
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ft the fraction of intelligent life bearing planets which develop technology
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L, the length of time the civilisation releases signals into space
What if they’ve already tried to contact us and
we missed the call?
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The Drake Equation
• To work out the number of civilisations in our galaxy with whom we might have a hope of communicating we multiply all these factors together.
LffnfRN tlep *
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• Different astronomers and cosmologists use different values for each of these factors.
• However, it is generally thought that there is a finite chance of contacting extraterrestrial intelligent beings.