Elias Colbert (April 23, 1829 - June 28, 1921) was a British American astronomer, journalist, educator, mathematician, linguist, professor at the University of Chicago, director of the Dearborn Observatory, and president of the Chicago Astronomical Society. His book, Star Studies: What We Know of the Universe Outside the Earth (1871) was an early, 19th century example of interest in the subject of life on Mars. [1]
Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is his research on the possibility of extraterrestrial life, including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals by exposure to light. He assembled the first physical messages sent into space, the Pioneer plaque and the Voyager Golden Record, which were universal messages that could potentially be understood by any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find them. He argued in favor of the hypothesis, which has since been accepted, that the high surface temperatures of Venus are the result of the greenhouse effect.
The Drake equation is a probabilistic argument used to estimate the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy.
Extraterrestrial life, alien life, or colloquially simply aliens is life which does not originate from Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been conclusively detected. Such life might range from simple forms such as prokaryotes to intelligent beings, possibly bringing forth civilizations that might be far more advanced than humanity. The Drake equation speculates about the existence of sapient life elsewhere in the universe. The science of extraterrestrial life is known as astrobiology.
Edwin Powell Hubble was an American astronomer. He played a crucial role in establishing the fields of extragalactic astronomy and observational cosmology.
The Fermi paradox is the discrepancy between the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life and the apparently high likelihood of its existence. As a 2015 article put it, "If life is so easy, someone from somewhere must have come calling by now."
Percival Lowell was an American businessman, author, mathematician, and astronomer who fueled speculation that there were canals on Mars, and furthered theories of a ninth planet within the Solar System. He founded the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and formed the beginning of the effort that led to the discovery of Pluto 14 years after his death.
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a collective term for scientific searches for intelligent extraterrestrial life, for example, monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations on other planets.
The following outline is provided as an overview and topical guide to space science:
Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, galaxies, meteoroids, asteroids, and comets. Relevant phenomena include supernova explosions, gamma ray bursts, quasars, blazars, pulsars, and cosmic microwave background radiation. More generally, astronomy studies everything that originates beyond Earth's atmosphere. Cosmology is a branch of astronomy that studies the universe as a whole.
Frank Donald Drake was an American astrophysicist and astrobiologist.
Harlow Shapley was an American scientist, head of the Harvard College Observatory (1921–1952), and political activist during the latter New Deal and Fair Deal.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was erroneously believed that there were "canals" on the planet Mars. These were a network of long straight lines in the equatorial regions from 60° north to 60° south latitude on Mars, observed by astronomers using early telescopes without photography.
The Great Filter is the idea that, in the development of life from the earliest stages of abiogenesis to reaching the highest levels of development on the Kardashev scale, there is a barrier to development that makes detectable extraterrestrial life exceedingly rare. The Great Filter is one possible resolution of the Fermi paradox.
Medieval Islamic astronomy comprises the astronomical developments made in the Islamic world, particularly during the Islamic Golden Age, and mostly written in the Arabic language. These developments mostly took place in the Middle East, Central Asia, Al-Andalus, and North Africa, and later in the Far East and India. It closely parallels the genesis of other Islamic sciences in its assimilation of foreign material and the amalgamation of the disparate elements of that material to create a science with Islamic characteristics. These included Greek, Sassanid, and Indian works in particular, which were translated and built upon.
The Dearborn Observatory is an astronomical observatory located on the Evanston campus of Northwestern University. The observatory was originally constructed in 1888, through an agreement between the university and the Chicago Astronomical Society. In the summer of 1939, Dearborn Observatory had to be moved to make way for the construction of the Technological Institute.
Steven J. Dick is an American astronomer, author, and historian of science most noted for his work in the field of astrobiology. Dick served as the chief historian for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration from 2003 to 2009 and as the Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology from 2013 to 2014. Before that, he was an astronomer and historian of science at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, DC, from 1979 to 2003.
The planet Mars is named after the Roman god of war Mars. In Babylonian astronomy, the planet was named after Nergal, their deity of fire, war, and destruction, most likely due to the planet's reddish appearance. Whether the Greeks equated Nergal with their god of war, Ares, or whether both drew from a more ancient association is unclear. In the age of Plato, the Greeks called the planet Ἄρεως ἀστἡρ, or "star of Ares". Following the identification of Ares and Mars, it was translated into Latin as stella Martis, or "star of Mars", or simply Mars. The Hellenistic Greeks also called the planet Πυρόεις Pyroeis, meaning "fiery".
There are several methods currently used by astronomers to detect distant exoplanets from Earth. Theoretically, some of these methods can be used to detect Earth as an exoplanet from distant star systems.
The dark forest hypothesis is the conjecture that many alien civilizations exist throughout the universe, but they are both silent and hostile, maintaining their undetectability for fear of being destroyed by another hostile and undetected civilization. It is one of many possible explanations of the Fermi paradox, which contrasts the lack of contact with alien life with the potential for such contact. The hypothesis derives its name from Liu Cixin's 2008 novel The Dark Forest, although the concept predates the novel.
The Berserker hypothesis, also known as the deadly probes scenario, is the idea that humans have not yet detected intelligent alien life in the universe because it has been systematically destroyed by a series of lethal Von Neumann probes. The hypothesis is named after the Berserker series of novels (1963–2005) written by Fred Saberhagen.
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