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What is Astrobiology?

“Astrobiology is the study of life in the universe. It investigates the origin, evolution, distribution, & future of life on Earth, & the search for life beyond Earth. Astrobiology addresses three fundamental questions: 1) How does life begin & evolve? 2) Is there life beyond Earth & how can we detect it? 3) What is the future of life on Earth & in the universe?” (http://astrobiology.arc.nasa.gov/)

Slide 2 Fig. 20-18, p.428

Slide 3 Fig. 26-9, p.599

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Slide 9 Fig. 26-10, p.601

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Slide 11 Fig. 23-16, p.518

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Slide 13 Fig. 15-2, p. 307

Slide 14 Fig. 26-11, p.602

Slide 15 p.188

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Slide 18 Table 26-1, p.607

Slide 19 Fig. 26-14, p.606

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Arecibo Radio Observatory (Puerto Rico)305-meter diam.

Phoenix Project1995-present survey of1000 nearby stars at freq.of 1000-3000 MHz

Project SERENDIP1979-present “piggy-back” survey using various radio telescopes.Arecibo observations (1992-present) scan each sky pointing every1.7 seconds over 168 million channels centered on 1420 MHz.This enormous data load is farmed out to SETI@home

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Allen Telescope Array (Hat Creek, California)350 6-meter dishes (2008)

This privately-funded (mostly byMicrosoft co-founder Paul Allen)telescope will be primarily usedby the SETI Institute for SETIsurveys. It will be able to scan awide field of view (2.5 degrees)over a wide frequency range(0.5-11.2 GHz) at each pointing.Over 50 dishes are already inplace and taking data for severalprojects.

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