Related papers: Demography of galactic technosignatures
The intuition suggested by the Drake equation implies that technology should be less prevalent than biology in the galaxy. However, it has been appreciated for decades in the SETI community that technosignatures could be more abundant,…
Previous critiques of the Drake Equation have highlighted its deterministic nature, implying that the number of civilizations is the same at all times. Here, I build upon earlier work and present a stochastic formulation. The birth of…
In this paper we address the cosmic frequency of technological species. Recent advances in exoplanet studies provide strong constraints on all astrophysical terms in the Drake Equation. Using these and modifying the form and intent of the…
The Milky Way Galaxy contains an unknown number, $N$, of civilizations that emit electromagnetic radiation (of unknown wavelengths) over a finite lifetime, $L$. Here we are assuming that the radiation is not produced indefinitely, but…
For about the last 60 years the search for extraterrestrial intelligence has been monitoring the sky for evidence of remotely detectable technological life beyond Earth, with no positive results to date. While the lack of detection can be…
The number N of detectable (i.e. communicating) extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy is usually done by using the Drake equation. This equation was established in 1961 by Frank Drake and was the first step to quantifying…
We introduce a mathematical framework for statistical exoplanet population and astrobiology studies that may help directing future observational efforts and experiments. The approach is based on a set of differential equations and provides…
This chapter draws upon astronomical observations and modeling to constrain the prevalence of communicative civilizations in the galaxy. We discuss the dependence of the Drake equation parameters on the spectral type of the host star and…
The Drake equation pertains to the essentially equilibrium situation in a population of communicative civilizations (CCs) of the Galaxy, but it does not describe dynamical processes which can occur in it. Both linear and non-linear…
The Drake equation has been used many times to estimate the number of observable civilizations in the Galaxy. However, the uncertainty of the outcome is so great that any individual result is of limited use, as predictions can range from a…
The data recently accumulated by the Kepler mission have demonstrated that small planets are quite common and that a significant fraction of all stars may have an Earth-like planet within their Habitable Zone. These results are combined…
Speculation about the existence of advanced forms of life in the Universe and in our galaxy, has been since ever a subject of fascination and discussion in fiction, as well as in astrophysics, biology and philosophy. The well-known Fermi's…
We use a statistical model to investigate the detectability (defined by the requirement that they are in causal contact with us) of communicating civilizations within a volume of the universe surrounding our location. If the civilizations…
In the search for life in the Universe, exoplanets represent numerous natural experiments in planet formation, evolution, and the emergence of life. This raises the fascinating prospect of evaluating cosmic life on a statistical basis. One…
The search for technosignatures from hypothetical galactic civilizations is going through a new phase of intense activity. For the first time, a significant fraction of the vast search space is expected to be sampled in the foreseeable…
This paper develops a detailed quantitative model which uses the Drake equation and an assumption of an average maximum radio broadcasting distance by an communicative civilization to derive a minimum civilization density for contact…
The distributions of galaxy properties vary with environment, and are often multimodal, suggesting that the galaxy population may be a combination of multiple components. The behaviour of these components versus environment holds details…
The Fermi paradox is the discrepancy between the strong likelihood of alien intelligent life emerging (under a wide variety of assumptions) and the absence of any visible evidence for such emergence. We use this intriguing unlikeness to…
The observation of life on Earth is generally accepted to be uninformative concerning the probability of life on other Earth-like planets, a belief first formalized by Brandon Carter and based on the selection effect of our existence. In a…
A simple stochastic model for evolution, based upon the need to pass a sequence of n critical steps (Carter 1983, Watson 2008) is applied to both terrestrial and extraterrestrial origins of life. In the former case, the time at which humans…