Questions for discussion or short essays:
Students will find these exercises akin to a pre-test, largely evaluating one's understanding either based on prior knoledge or on the brief presentation in the Prologue. They are therefore meant to provoke critical thinking. Much more information regarding each of these questions will be developed in greater detail in the principal epochs of this Web site.
1. State the "assumptions of mediocrity" often used by researchers to argue, on the basis of logic alone, for the prevalence of galactic aliens.
2. Summarize the advantages for a form of life based on the carbon atom rather than on any other chemical element.
3. Suppose that you had the means (and the inclination) to travel to any nearby region in search of life as we know it. Based on what you have learned in this epoch, describe and give reasons for the type of region you would choose as ideal for your visit.
4. List, and explain in a phrase or sentence, in addition to planets, at least two types of objects where complex organic molecules have been observed.
5. Describe the main findings to date regarding the search for life on Mars, including a brief explanation of at least three of the major tests conducted in situ by the U.S. Viking robot spacecraft. To what extent might there be microfossils buried in the Martian soil from an era long past?
6. Estimate, and briefly explain your reasoning for, the propspects for the origin and evolution of life near a main-sequence O-type star, a star cluster in the Milky Way's halo, and within a dark galactic cloud.
7. What is the significance of the Murchison meteorite?
8. Why are both high-mass and low-mass stars needed for the development of life as we know it on Earth?
9. What observational technique is currently envisioned to be the most advantageous method of discovering extraterrestrial civilizations, and why?
10. What is meant by the statement that we are now probably the "dumbest technological intelligence in the Galaxy"?