Cheap Astronomy - Dear CA Ep. 124: Aliens & Alien Worlds

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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