* Astronomy

New system would assess odds of life on other worlds

Within the next few years, the number of planets discovered in orbits around distant stars will likely reach several thousand or more. But even as our list of these newly discovered "exoplanets grows ever-longer, the search for life beyond our solar system will likely focus much more narrowly on the relatively few of these new worlds which exhibit the most Earth-like of conditions.
For much of the scientific community, the search for alien life has long been dominated by the notion that our own planet serves as the best model of conditions best suited to the emergence of life on other worlds. And while theres anundeniable logic to seeking life in the same sort of conditions in which you already know it to be successful, there are scientists like Dirk Schulze-Makuch, an astrobiologist with the Washington State University School of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Abel Mendez, a modelling expert from the University of Puerto Rico at Aricebo, who also see such a model as the product of a potentially limiting form of earthling-biased thinking.

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Title: On the likelihood of non-terrestrial artifacts in the Solar System
Authors: Jacob Haqq-Misra, Ravi Kumar Kopparapu

Extraterrestrial technology may exist in the Solar System without our knowledge. This is because the vastness of space, combined with our limited searches to date, implies that any remote unpiloted exploratory probes of extraterrestrial origin would likely remain unnoticed. Here we develop a probabilistic approach to quantify our certainty (or uncertainty) of the existence of such technology in the Solar System. We discuss some possible strategies for improving this uncertainty that include analysis of moon- and Mars-orbiting satellite data as well as continued exploration of the Solar System.

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Seeking ET Beyond the Radio Silence

Any intelligent extraterrestrial life that exists probably won't announce itself by blowing up the White House, or win over the hearts of children as a lovable alien with a glowing finger. Many scientists simply hope to find evidence of them by scanning the skies for a radio signal from a distant star's alien civilization. But such efforts may also risk overlooking clues of past alien activity right here on Earth.
If aliens did leave their mark on Earth by some wild chance, we could search for the possible "footprints" of alien technology or even analyse the DNA of terrestrial organisms for signs of intelligent messages or tinkering.
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Russian scientists expect humanity to encounter alien civilisations within the next two decades, a top Russian astronomer said on Monday.
Speaking at an international forum dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial life, Andrei Finkelstein, director of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Applied Astronomy Institute, said 10% of the known planets circling suns in the galaxy resemble Earth.
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