EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE

any form of life that may exist or may have existed in the universe outside of Earth. For years scientists have speculated about the possibility of extraterrestrial life and have even searched for its existence, yet no such life has been detected. The chemistry of extraterrestrial life, scientists assume, would require (1) a suitable medium for chemical reactions and (2) atomic material that is commonly found in the Cosmos and is somewhat unstable structurally. Exobiology, or the study of extraterrestrial life, has been the framework in which scientists have examined the possibility of life on the planets and satellites of the Milky Way Galaxy. Mars, with its seasonal changes and its long, straight lines resembling canals, has long held the literary imagination as a planet inhabited by life, even though unmanned probes found no such evidence upon landing there in 1976. From the early 1960s various astronomers have made efforts to seek out signals from supposed technologically advanced civilizations, relying extensively on radio astronomical technology. A very large radio telescope, as, for example, the 305-metre (1,000-foot) instrument of the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, is powerful enough to receive signals transmitted by a comparable telescope located 1,000 light-years away. Based on computations using the Green Bank equation (q.v.), it is thought that the closest advanced technical civilization may be only a few hundred light-years from Earth, which would mean that radio communications are feasible. Also, the Hubble Space Telescope can observe the electromagnetic spectra of stars and planets beyond the solar system. Through spectral analyses of Hubble data, astronomers can determine the approximate temperature, type, and abundance of atmospheric molecules and determine if an object has some of the elements necessary to support life as it is known on Earth. The most extensive ongoing project, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), based in the United States, focuses on receiving and analyzing signals from space.