[NEWS] Five space links: extraterrestrial life, CK Vulpeculae, extraterrestrial intelligence

[rfmcdonald]

• Matt Williams at Universe Today notes a paper suggesting that, to have adequate amounts of biomass for a complex biosphere, Earth-like exoplanets would need a good balance between continents and oceans.


• Matt Williams at Universe Today notes a proposal that, when searching for living worlds, astronomers should search for purple worlds, marked by the pigments of the retinal-based photosynthesis that may have predominated on the early Earth.


• This Universe Today report on the mysterious collision producing the strange stellar object CK Vulpeculae does a great job of outlining a galactic mystery.


• This report about a proposal by scientists at MIT to create a laser beacon that would signal our existence to extraterrestrial civilizations looking at our sun intrigues, and alarms, me.


• James Nicoll at Tor notes speculation that strange extrasolar object 'Oumuamua might be an errant alien artifact. What would that indicate about the galaxy?