Rajeev Bansal
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I received the book “Penguins, Pineapples, and Pangolins” [1] as a Christmas gift in 2022. It is a fascinating compendium of the first encounters European travelers had during the Age of Exploration (the 15th century to the 17th century) with people, flora, and fauna in distant lands, all narrated in the explorers’ own voices. As the author Claire Cock-Starkey notes in the prologue, “humans have always searched out new experiences and this has fueled exploration. The early Polynesians set out in outrigger canoes, the Vikings used rather larger ships to discover new lands and the Romans were inspired to explore in order to expand their empire” [1]. The book brought to my mind a modern explorer of the cosmos, Frank Drake, who passed away [2], [3] recently at the age of 92. His first encounter was yet to come.
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this column appeared originally in the April 2023 issue of IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine.
Armed with a Ph.D. (1958) in astronomy from Harvard, Drake landed a job with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia. In 1960, he launched Project Ozma (named after a character in L. Frank Baum’s “Oz” books) in his first attempt at the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). He pointed the radio telescope at two sunlike stars, about 11 light years from Earth) to pick up potential radio signals. Alas, the only signal detected was from an aircraft radar [2].
Undeterred, Drake organized a small conference of like-minded SETI enthusiasts the following year. It was at this meeting that Drake wrote down the famous Drake equation [2], which was used to estimate the number of observable civilizations in our galaxy. As described in words, the equation states [3], “The number of detectable civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy = the rate at which stars are born x the fraction of stars that host planets x the number of habitable planets per planetary system x the fraction of those planets on which life evolves x the fraction of life that evolves intelligence x the fraction of intelligent life that develops communicative technologies x the average length of time civilizations are detectable.” It is easy to see that the values of most of the terms in the equation are hard to guess with any reasonable accuracy. Nevertheless, over the years, the equation has served to excite the imagination of many fellow scientists and amateurs alike. Drake remained committed to the use of radio astronomy for SETI all his life. As he wrote in 1962, “At this very minute, with almost absolute certainty, radio waves sent forth by other intelligent civilizations are falling on the earth. A telescope can be built that, pointed in the right place and tuned to the right frequency could discover these waves. Someday, from somewhere out among the stars, will come the answers to many of the oldest, most important and most exciting questions mankind has asked” [2].
In a series for the Discovery Channel, the late astrophysicist Stephen Hawking said it was “perfectly rational” [4] to assume the existence of intelligent life elsewhere. However, drawing upon the history of European travelers during the Age of Exploration, he warned that aliens might simply raid Earth for resources, then move on. As he cautioned, “If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans” [4]. All things considered, I would be happy with a Zoom-based first encounter!
[1] C. Cock-Starkey, Penguins, Pineapples and Pangolins: First Encounters with the Exotic. London, U.K.: British Library, 2016.
[2] D. Overbye, “Frank Drake, who led search for life on other planets, dies at 92,” NY Times, Sep. 2022. Accessed: Dec. 31, 2022. [Online] . Available: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/05/science/space/frank-drake-dead.html
[3] M. Rowan-Robinson, “Frank Drake obituary,” Guardian, Oct. 2022. Accessed: Dec. 31, 2022. [Online] . Available: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/oct/13/frank-drake-obituary
[4] “Stephen Hawking warns over making contact with aliens,” BBC, Apr. 2010. Accessed: Dec. 31, 2022. [Online] . Available: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8642558.stm
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MMM.2023.3242516