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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