On September 2, 2022, Frank Drake, the American astronomer, and astrophysicist (b. May 28, 1930) died at his home in Aptos, California, from natural causes at the age of 92.
Category Archives: Astrobiology
Viking 1 Entered Mars Orbit on June 19, 1976
On June 19, 1976, NASA!s Viking 1 Orbiter was inserted into Mars orbit. Both Viking 1 and Viking 2 spacecraft were consisting of an orbiter and a lander.
When Will Humanity Become a Kardashev Type I Civilization?
There are several ways we can measure the progress of human civilization. Population growth, the rise and fall of empires, and our technological ability to reach for the stars. But one simple measure is to calculate the amount of energy humans use at any given time. As humanity has spread and advanced, our ability to …
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No, we didn’t find a more habitable planet than Earth
Discovered on January 6, 2015, Kepler-442b is a near-Earth-sized exoplanet. Most probably it is a rocky planet and it orbits its star, Kepler-442, within the habitable zone. According to some sources, including Wikipedia, it is an even more habitable planet than Earth. But, that’s not the case, and this claim is just an inaccurate interpretation …
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Search for Life Beyond Earth: Developing a Guidebook
Are we alone in the universe? Searching for life beyond our Solar System is one of the most ambitious efforts humans have ever undertaken. Because we do not have the ability to travel to distant exoplanets, scientists must rely on indirect clues that could help us find extraterrestrial life. Dr. Edward Schwieterman and his colleagues …
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You’ll be amazed how cramped the TRAPPIST-1 System is
Science writer Pat Brennan has published a great article on the NASA exoplanets website titled “Life in the Universe: What are the Odds?”. In the article, he published a diagram showing the habitable zones of our solar system, and the TRAPPIST-1 system. The amazing thing is how cramped the TRAPPIST-1 system is: the orbits of …
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Perseverance Rover’s first 360-degree view of Mars
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has published the official video of Perseverance Rover‘s first 360-degree view of Mars, and it’s amazing!
Perseverance Rover Touchdown Photo on Mars – and its first full-color look
A car-sized rover touching down on another planet! NASA has published an amazing photo of the Perseverance Rover touchdown on Mars. For the first time in history, we have a photo of a rover’s touchdown on another planetary body.
How life on Earth could help us find life on Mars
In our continuing search for other life in the universe, one place has always looked promising – Mars. It is a rocky planet like Earth, orbiting the same star, and at a distance where water could have been present on the planet.
Earth has stayed habitable for billions of years. Exactly how lucky did we get?
It took evolution 3 or 4 billion years to produce humans. If the climate had completely failed just once in that time then evolution would have come to a crashing halt and we would not be here now. So to understand how we came to exist on planet Earth, we’ll need to know how Earth …
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