Goldilocks Zone Research Paper

The Goldilocks Zone The 21st century is home to countless technological breakthroughs in astronomy. Scientists dwarf their latest discoveries with something bigger and more relevant every year. Day and night astronomers shower the cosmos with radio waves and probes hoping to find any form of extraterrestrial life. The war between science and religion nears its climax as the data pours in. Christian beliefs may be questioned as mankind draws closer than ever to discovering life outside of earth. From the beginning of documented time, the human species has looked to the skies for answers. Observing star formations and the relationship between time and space, the Mayan empire was able to create accurate calendars and predict eclipses. Ancient Sumerians dating back to 4500BC believed in the god “An” which in Sumerian means “sky”.
The Higgs Boson (God particle) was discovered in 2012. Starting with the early days of space travel, NASA has always had its eye open for extraterrestrial life. When NASA launched the pioneer 10 and 11 spacecrafts toward Jupiter, they equipped the spacecrafts with plaques. On these plaques, are detailed diagrams of where the plaques originated from and who created them. The plaques are also equipped with 14 radiating lines used to represent the 14 pulsars. The lines are aligned in a manner to locate the Sun as the home star. Frank Drake, an American scientist and astrophysicist, founded SETI, the method of using personal computers to aid in the search for extraterrestrial life, and created the Drake equation. The Drake equation allows scientists to calculate the uncertain number of factors which may determin possible extraterrestrial civilizations. Frank Drake looks to answer the question “ How many planets might have life?” The equation highly involves the fraction of stars that have planets and the number of planets that could support