Astrobiology
Astrobiology is said to be the survey and research for life beyond Earth.
Astrobiology elaborate a wide range of research areas, including astronomy, geology, biology, and sociology. It is succinctly encapsulated by the so-called Drake Equation. The latter, devised more than five decades ago by astronomer Frank Drake, is a scheme for estimating the number of communicating societies elsewhere in the Milky Way galaxy. Even though this famous formulation was intended to guide the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence, it turns out to also describe the other research areas pursued by our scientists
While
astrobiology is a relatively young research area, it has a secure and promising life. As the area of
astrobiology has been raised, there has been an increased need to teach the next generation of
astrobiology researchers and educators.
Most astronomy-related
astrobiology research falls into the category of extrasolar planet detection, the hypothesis being that if life arose on Earth, then it could also arise on other planets with similar characteristics. To that end, a number of instruments designed to detect Earth-sized exoplanets have been considered, most notably NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) and ESA's Darwin programs, both of which have been cancelled. There are also several less ambitious ground-based efforts underway.
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