Are we alone, and if so can we have all the planets?
Dear Cheap Astronomy – Alien diplomacy?
A recent paper by John Gertz called Interstellar Diplomacy suggests some kind of contact with
aliens is inevitable, which seems reasonable with respect to some kind of radio transmission,
but the paper then goes on to suggest that contact might involve a robotic scout vehicle sent
here from an a distant alien civilization, which seems somewhat less inevitable and then it
descends into farce by further suggesting such scouts might have flown through our
atmosphere already, you know like those UAP things that the US Airforce and NASA are
investigating. Yikes.
Dear Cheap Astronomy – The ultraviolet habitable zone?
Current lists of potentially life-bearing exoplanets are determined by them being in their star's
circumstellar zone in which temperatures would allow liquid water to form – also known as the
Goldilock's zone. The other main required feature is that they be rocky rather than gaseous,
which is determined through measurement of the planet's mass and its likely size – so a large
mass planet with a small diameter suggests a expecting to find life on planets and systems most
like the Earth and the Sun, since we're assuming all life we automatically follow the one and
only example that we know of.
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