Dear friends,
It is a sad time for the SETI community. Dr. Frank Drake, who transformed our view of cosmic companionship, passed away on September 2, 2022 at his home in California. He was 92. Drake is perhaps best known for conducting the first search for extraterrestrial civilizations, formulating the Drake equation, and leading the design of a message that was sent to the stars. His life's work hinged on the assumption that other civilizations exist in the universe, a conjecture that has become common among astronomers. In 1960, Drake searched for extraterrestrial signals in the direction of two Sun-like stars with a radio telescope, ensuring his legacy as the father of experimental SETI – the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. With this search, known as Project Ozma, he demonstrated that it is possible to seek contact with advanced beings in our galaxy and beyond. More importantly, Drake cemented the idea that we may not be alone in the cosmos, and that we may have much to learn from our distant companions, which are almost certainly far more advanced than we are. Imagine what we could learn! In 1961, he wrote the Drake equation as a way of organizing our thoughts about the number of communicative civilizations in our galaxy (see Sept. 17, 2017 and Apr. 2, 2021 newsletters). For decades, the leading factors in this equation remained unknown, such as the number of stars that host planets and the number of planets that are potentially habitable. Drake was fortunate to witness the astronomical revolution brought about by NASA's Kepler mission, which places the number of potentially habitable worlds in our galaxy in the billions. Has intelligent life evolved on some of these worlds? In 1974, Drake led the design of a highly symbolic message transmitted by a powerful radar at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, which he had directed in prior years. The 3-minute message contains information about the Solar System, Earth's population, and DNA. It was sent in the direction of a cluster of stars and will reach its destination in approximately 25,000 years. If we can send an interstellar message with our primitive technology, Drake showed, then surely we could detect messages from more advanced civilizations. In subsequent years, Drake taught astronomy at Cornell University, his alma mater, then at the University of California at Santa Cruz, where he also served as the Dean of Natural Sciences. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and served in influential positions at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. Although the discovery of other life forms in the universe has yet to take place, Drake's legacy of envisioning contact with our cosmic companions is a profound gift to humanity. If you wish to learn more about Dr. Frank Drake and his legacy, consider reading the obituary published by The New York Times.
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