First thread. I thought an enigma chain thread could be fun (poster below must give answer of enigma above, and post his.) If this doesn't work, well who cares anyways. 

Mr. and Ms. Smith invited 20 couples  (man and women) over to their house. When they arrived, a certain number of handshakes was given. No on shook hands twice with the same person. We know that a married couple will not shake each other's hand (since they know each other anyways.) Later on, mister smith asks evryone, including his wife, how many handshakes they have given so far. Everyone gives a different answer (they are not lying, or giving a wrong answer otherwise) . How many hands has Ms. Smith shaken?

The answer has to be verified by the poster above, before continuing.

Mathematically, it's wrong, but mathematics don't bring you far in real life...

No again... but let's leave it at that. Someone else can post the solution later on. Do you have any problems I could try to solve?

One?

279 040 aliens.

For your problem: one, considering that the astronaut would be the alien on the planet? Otherwise, I would not know.

The correct answer for mine is 20. Considering that all the numbers between 0 and 40 will have to be mentionned, (41 people, so 41 different answers) we can deduce that one person has shaken the hand of 40 people. However, the person having shaken 0 hands must obligatorily be married to him, as the first could not have shaken his hand otherwise, (since a handshake counts for both), and the first person needs to ahake all possible hands to get to 40. After that, there is equally a person that has shaken 39 hands. In a similar manner, the person he is married to must have shaken exactly 1 hand, as if someone else would have shaken only one hand, (which is obligatorily shaken with the guy that has shaken 40 hands), the person could not have shaken 39 hands, as he has to shake all possible hands excluding the 0, who could not have shaken his hand, to be able to come upon 39 hands. On so forth, only the middle value is left, for misses smith, as her husband was not interrogated, thus she is the only one not to have an interrogated person whom she could not have shaken the hand of.

The red aliens will split 6 times so: 8 X 2⁶ = 512

The blue aliens will split 9 times so: 32 x 2⁹ = 16,384

The green aliens will split 12 times so: 64 X 2¹² = 262,144

Total: 279,040 or 1 if the astronaut is consider the alien.

So, who does the next one?

I have one riddle to keep things going, what is the next number in this series ?

1
11
21
1211
111221
312211