Frank Drake

Frank Drake is one of the principal founders of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).

He is best known for devising the Drake equation, which can be used to estimate the number of intelligent civilizations in our galaxy; he is one a handful of scientists who have devised equations that have penetrated popular culture sufficiently to appear on t-shirts and other merchandise.

Drake has played a key role in composing messages sent out from Earth in the hope that one day an alien civilization will discover and read them.

In addition to his SETI work, Drake was the first person to map the center of the Milky Way galaxy, and he coined the word ‘pulsar’ to describe rapidly rotating neutron stars.