The Drake Equation as a Function of Spectral Type and Time

Abstract

This chapter draws upon astronomical observations and modeling to constrain the prevalence of communicative civilizations in the galaxy. We discuss the dependence of the Drake equation parameters on the spectral type of the host star and the time since the galaxy formed, which allow us to examine trajectories for the emergence of communicative civilizations over the history of the galaxy. We suggest that the maximum lifetime of communicative civilizations depends on the spectral type of the host star, which implies that F- and G-dwarf stars are the best places to search for signs of technological intelligence today.

To be published in Habitability of the Universe Before Earth, R. Gordon and A. Sharov (Eds.), Elsevier

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Cited by in corpus (3)

• Testing Earth-like atmospheric evolution on exo-Earths through oxygen absorption: required sample sizes and the advantage of age-based target selection
• Eta-Earth Revisited II: Deriving a Maximum Number of Earth-like Habitats in the Galactic Disk
• Monte Carlo estimation of the probability of causal contacts between communicating civilisations