Frank Donald Drake (May 28, 1930 – September 2, 2022) was an American astrophysicist and

astrobiologist Astrobiology, and the related field of exobiology, is an interdisciplinary scientific field that studies the origins, early evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. Astrobiology is the multidisciplinary field that inves ...

. He began his career as a

radio astronomer Radio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies celestial objects at radio frequencies. The first detection of radio waves from an astronomical object was in 1933, when Karl Jansky at Bell Telephone Laboratories reported radiation coming ...

, studying the

planets of the Solar System This is a list of most likely gravitationally rounded objects of the Solar System, which are objects that have a rounded, ellipsoidal shape due to their own gravity (but are not necessarily in hydrostatic equilibrium). Apart from the Sun itself, ...

and later

pulsar A pulsar (from ''pulsating radio source'') is a highly magnetized rotating neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its magnetic poles. This radiation can be observed only when a beam of emission is pointing toward Ea ...

s. Drake expanded his interests to the

search for extraterrestrial intelligence The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a collective term for scientific searches for intelligent extraterrestrial life, for example, monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations on other ...

(SETI), beginning with

Project Ozma Project Ozma was a search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) experiment started in 1960 by Cornell University astronomer Frank Drake, at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Green Bank at Green Bank, West Virginia. The object of the e ...

in 1960, an attempt at extraterrestrial communications. He developed the

Drake equation The Drake equation is a probabilistic argument used to estimate the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy. The equation was formulated in 1961 by Frank Drake, not for purposes of quantifying ...

, which attempts to quantify the number of intelligent lifeforms that could potentially be discovered. Working with

Carl Sagan Carl Edward Sagan (; ; November 9, 1934December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is research on ex ...

, Drake helped to design the

Pioneer plaque The Pioneer plaques are a pair of gold-anodized aluminum plaques that were placed on board the 1972 ''Pioneer 10'' and 1973 ''Pioneer 11'' spacecraft, featuring a pictorial message, in case either ''Pioneer 10'' or ''11'' is intercepted by inte ...

, the first physical message flown beyond the Solar System, and was part of the team that developed the

Voyager record The Voyager Golden Records are two phonograph records that were included aboard both Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977. The records contain sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and are intended for ...

. Drake designed and implemented the

Arecibo message The Arecibo message is an interstellar radio message carrying basic information about humanity and Earth that was sent to the globular cluster Messier 13 in 1974. It was meant as a demonstration of human technological achievement, rather than ...

in 1974, an extraterrestrial radio transmission of astronomical and biological information about Earth. Drake worked at the

National Radio Astronomy Observatory The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a federally funded research and development center of the United States National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. for the purpose of radio a ...

Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, La Cañada Flintridge, California ...

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

University of California at Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge o ...

and the

SETI Institute The SETI Institute is a not-for-profit research organization incorporated in 1984 whose mission is to explore, understand, and explain the origin and nature of life in the universe, and to use this knowledge to inspire and guide present and futu ...

Early life and education

Born on May 28, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois, Drake showed an early interest in electronics and chemistry. Drake first considered the possibility of

life existing on other planets Extraterrestrial life, colloquially referred to as alien life, is life that may occur outside Earth and which did not originate on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been conclusively detected, although efforts are underway. Such life might ...

as an eight-year-old, after conjecturing that if human civilization was the result of chance then civilizations might also exist elsewhere in the universe. He enrolled at

on a Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps scholarship. Once there he began studying astronomy. His ideas about the possibility of

extraterrestrial life Extraterrestrial life, colloquially referred to as alien life, is life that may occur outside Earth and which did not originate on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been conclusively detected, although efforts are underway. Such life might ...

were reinforced by a lecture from astrophysicist

Otto Struve Otto Struve (August 12, 1897 – April 6, 1963) was a Russian-American astronomer of Baltic German origins. In Russian, his name is sometimes given as Otto Lyudvigovich Struve (Отто Людвигович Струве); however, he spent most o ...

in 1951. After receiving a B.A. in Engineering Physics, Drake served briefly as an electronics officer on the

heavy cruiser The heavy cruiser was a type of cruiser, a naval warship designed for long range and high speed, armed generally with naval guns of roughly 203 mm (8 inches) in caliber, whose design parameters were dictated by the Washington Naval T ...

USS ''Albany''. He then went on to graduate school at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

from 1952 to 1955 where he received a M.S. and Ph.D. in Astronomy. His

doctoral advisor A doctoral advisor (also dissertation director, dissertation advisor; or doctoral supervisor) is a member of a university faculty whose role is to guide graduate students who are candidates for a doctorate, helping them select coursework, as w ...

was

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (born Cecilia Helena Payne; – ) was a British-born American astronomer and astrophysicist who proposed in her 1925 doctoral thesis that stars were composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. Her groundbreaking conclus ...

Career

Drake began his research career as a

, working at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (

NRAO The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a federally funded research and development center of the United States National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. for the purpose of radio a ...

) in

Green Bank, West Virginia Green Bank is a census-designated place in Pocahontas County in West Virginia's Potomac Highlands inside the Allegheny Mountain Range. Green Bank is located along WV 28. Green Bank is home to the Green Bank Observatory and is also close to the ...

from 1958–63. At NRAO, he conducted research into radio emissions from the

: using the radio telescope at Green Bank, Drake discovered the

ionosphere The ionosphere () is the ionized part of the upper atmosphere of Earth, from about to above sea level, a region that includes the thermosphere and parts of the mesosphere and exosphere. The ionosphere is ionized by solar radiation. It plays ...

and

magnetosphere In astronomy and planetary science, a magnetosphere is a region of space surrounding an astronomical object in which charged particles are affected by that object's magnetic field. It is created by a celestial body with an active interior d ...

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousand ...

, and observed the

atmosphere of Venus The atmosphere of Venus is the layer of gases surrounding Venus. It is composed primarily of supercritical carbon dioxide and is much denser and hotter than that of Earth. The temperature at the surface is 740 K (467 °C, 872 ...

. He also mapped the radio emission from the

Galactic Center The Galactic Center or Galactic Centre is the rotational center, the barycenter, of the Milky Way galaxy. Its central massive object is a supermassive black hole of about 4 million solar masses, which is called Sagittarius A*, a compact ra ...

. Drake extended the capabilities of the under-construction

Arecibo Observatory The Arecibo Observatory, also known as the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC) and formerly known as the Arecibo Ionosphere Observatory, is an observatory in Barrio Esperanza, Arecibo, Puerto Rico owned by the US National Science ...

to allow it to be used for radio astronomy (it was originally designed purely for ionospheric physics). In April 1959, Drake obtained approval from the director Otto Struve of NRAO to begin

, a search for extraterrestrial radio communications. Initially, they agreed to keep the project secret, fearing public ridicule. However, Drake decided to publicize his project after Giuseppe Cocconi and

Philip Morrison Philip Morrison (November 7, 1915 – April 22, 2005) was a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is known for his work on the Manhattan Project during World War II, and for his later work in quantum physi ...

published a paper in ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

'' in September 1959, entitled "Searching for Interstellar Communications". Drake began his Project Ozma observations in 1960, using the NRAO 26-meter radio telescope, by searching for possible signals from the star systems

Tau Ceti Tau Ceti, Latinized from τ Ceti, is a single star in the constellation Cetus that is spectrally similar to the Sun, although it has only about 78% of the Sun's mass. At a distance of just under from the Solar System, it is a rela ...

and

Epsilon Eridani Epsilon Eridani ( Latinized from ε Eridani), formally named Ran, is a star in the southern constellation of Eridanus, at a declination of 9.46° south of the celestial equator. This allows it to be visible from most of Earth's surfac ...

. No extraterrestrial signals were detected and the project was terminated in July 1960. After learning about Project Ozma,

(then a graduate student) contacted Drake, initiating a lifelong collaboration between them. In 1961, Drake devised the

, which attempted estimate the number of extraterrestrial civilizations that might be detectable in the

Milky Way The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye. ...

. The Drake equation has been described as the "second most-famous equation in science", after E=mc². In 1963, Drake served as section chief of Lunar and Planetary Science at the

. He returned to Cornell in 1964, this time as a member of the

faculty (academic staff) Academic personnel, also known as faculty member or member of the faculty (in North American usage) or academics or academic staff (in British, Australia, and New Zealand usage), are vague terms that describe teachers or research staff of a school ...

, where he would spend the next two decades. He was promoted to Goldwin Smith Professor of Astronomy in 1976. Drake served as associate director of the Cornell Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, as director of the Arecibo Observatory from 1966 to 1968, and as director of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC, which includes the Arecibo facility), from its establishment in 1971 to 1981. In 1972, Drake co-designed the

with Carl Sagan and Linda Salzman Sagan. The plaque was the first physical message sent into space and intended to be understandable by any sufficiently technologically advanced extraterrestrial lifeforms that might intercept it. In 1974, Drake wrote the

, the first interstellar message transmitted deliberately from Earth. He later served as technical director, with Carl Sagan and

Ann Druyan Ann Druyan ( ; born June 13, 1949) is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning American documentary producer and director specializing in the communication of science. She co-wrote the 1980 PBS documentary series ''Cosmos'', hosted by Carl Sagan, w ...

, in the development of the

Voyager Golden Record The Voyager Golden Records are two phonograph records that were included aboard both Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977. The records contain sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and are intended for ...

, an improved version of the Pioneer plaque which also incorporated audio recordings. In 1984, Drake moved to the

(UCSC), becoming their Dean of Natural Science. The non-profit

was founded the same year, with Drake as president of its board of trustees. Drake left his role as dean in 1988, but remained a professor at UCSC while also becoming director of the SETI Institute's Carl Sagan Center. Drake was President of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific from 1988 to 1990. From 1989 to 1992, he was chairman of the Board of Physics and Astronomy for the National Research Council. He retired from teaching in 1996 but remained emeritus professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UCSC.University of California , Lick observatory www.ucolick.org
retrieved 18:29 23 October 2011 In 2010, Drake stepped down as director of The Carl Sagan Center but continued to serve on the SETI Institute's board of trustees. On the subject of the search for the existence of extra-terrestrial life, Drake said: " far as I know, the most fascinating, interesting thing you could find in the universe is not another kind of star or galaxy … but another kind of life."

Personal life

Drake's hobbies included

lapidary Lapidary (from the Latin ) is the practice of shaping stone, minerals, or gemstones into decorative items such as cabochons, engraved gems (including cameos), and faceted designs. A person who practices lapidary is known as a lapidarist. A lap ...

and the cultivation of

orchid Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of floweri ...

s. He had five children, including science journalist Nadia Drake. Drake died on September 2, 2022, at his home in

Aptos, California Aptos (Ohlone for "The People") is an unincorporated town in Santa Cruz County, California. The town is made up of several small villages, which together form Aptos: Aptos Hills-Larkin Valley, Aptos Village, Cabrillo, Seacliff, Rio del Mar, and ...

, from natural causes at the age of 92.

Honors

* Asteroid 4772 Frankdrake is named after him. * Elected to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...

in 1972 * Elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

in 1974. * 2001 Drake award from the SETI Institute * 2018 National Space Society's Space Pioneer Award for Science and Engineering

References

External links

Frank Drake's academic tree

rief biography for

astrobiology Astrobiology, and the related field of exobiology, is an interdisciplinary scientific field that studies the origins, early evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. Astrobiology is the multidisciplinary field that invest ...

workshop at the

NASA Ames Research Center The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) labora ...

.
Frank Drake's 2010 article on "The Origin of the Drake Equation"
* "Finding Aliens 'Only a Matter of Time', Says Father of SETI"
/span> A Q&A with Frank Drake about his famous equation and the meaning of SETI, from an interview in February 2010, leading up to the 50th birthday of SETI * A public talk by Frank Drake in the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series
2012 Interview with Frank Drake looking back on his career

2014 closertotruth.com Interview with Frank Drake looking at the question of Intelligent E.T. and a Space based Radio Telescope
* "The Drake Equation"
/span>

Astronomy Cast ''Astronomy Cast'' is an educational nonprofit podcast discussing various topics in the field of astronomy. The specific subject matter of each episode shifts from week to week, ranging from planets and stars to cosmology and mythbusting. Premier ...