Drake Equation Research Paper

2201 Words5 Pages

Emily Hellthaler
FYS-1000
December 17, 2014
Drake Equation Are we alone in the Universe? This has been the big question all semester. We know that life can develop in the universe because of our presence here, but there is no simple definition of life. There is an essential characteristic of life and that is the ability to reproduce. Dr. Frank Drake developed the SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence). Drake believed if extraterrestrial civilization were going to communicate with us, this would be the signal. Not every star is home to an intelligent, communicative civilization, but what keeps SETI going is the idea that perhaps some solar star is. To guide the SETI, the drake equation was established. (N=R*fp ne fl fi L) It is an …show more content…

This symbol represents how many planets per star system exist in the habitable zone. Roughly, I think it is about 0.22. The habitable zone is an area where the temperature is just right for liquid water to exist. Water is a key essential for intelligent life and in order for intelligent life to exist, there has to be liquid water. In the mission Kepler, Kepler has actually found 603 planets, 10 of which are Earth size and orbit in the habitable zone, where conditions permit water. In an activity we conducted in class, we were on the hunt for Earth-like exoplanet. In order to figure out which planets are Earth-like we had to follow certain descriptions. For orbital parameters there was Msin(i) [mearth], semi-major axis [au], orbital period, and orbital eccentricity. Msin(i) means finding the minimum mass of the planet. Semi-Major Axis [au] means figuring out the radius of the planets orbit in astronomical units. Orbital period is the time it takes the planet to orbit its star in Earth days and orbital eccentricity shows us how elliptical the orbit is by the variation between 0 and 1. A perfectly circular orbit has an eccentricity of 0, and the more oval or stretched out the orbit is, the closer the eccentricity is to 1. We also had to use stellar properties; these properties included mass of star [msun] and radius of star [rsun]. Mass of star is comparing the mass of the star to the mass of our Sun. A value of 1 means it is the same mass of our …show more content…

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Scoles, S., & Heatherly, S. (2011, January 1). The Drake Equation: 50 years of Giving Direction to the Scientific Search for Life Beyond Earth. Retrieved December 18, 2014, from http://www.astrosociety.org/uitc
THE GOLDEN RECORD. (n.d.). Retrieved December 14, 2014, from http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/goldenrec.html
Voyager - The Interstellar Mission. (n.d.). Retrieved December 16, 2014, from http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov
Handouts
• Life in the Universe- lab
• The hunt for an Earth-Like Exoplanet
• The Drake Equation: Estimating the Number of Civilizations in the Milky

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