We know that life is possible on an Earth-like world around a Sun-like star. But can it find a way on a Super-Earth? When it comes to the origin of […]

Only 8 worlds make the astronomical cut as planets. Here are the 10 fascinating bodies that didn’t make it. Astronomically, bodies within the Solar System must achieve three criteria in order […]

Kepler showed us that the Universe is full of planets around other stars. TESS is giving us our next great leap. It’s been nearly a decade since NASA’s Kepler mission first […]

Dark matter is one of the most puzzling, unintuitive concepts in all of physics. But we still need it. Our Universe isn’t like us. While we’re made of atoms, and other […]

Welcome Seth Shostak, senior scientist at SETI, onto the show! Is there intelligent life out there in the Universe beyond planet Earth? If so, are they technologically advances, can they hear […]

The first planets were only gas. The second included rocky ones, but life wasn’t possible. Here’s how we finally got there. Here in the Universe today, potentially habitable planets are practically […]

Planets can ‘discover’ nuclear power on their own, naturally, without any intelligence. Earth did it 1.7 billion years before humans. If you were hunting for alien intelligence, looking for a surefire […]

We can’t help but wonder if it’s habitable, or even inhabited, but the evidence isn’t there for it. Every star that fills the night sky carries along with it one of […]

How ‘special’ are we for life to have survived and thrived the way it did? While there are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy, many with Earth-sized planets at […]

Finding the ingredients for life is a very different prospect than finding the products of life. Perhaps the greatest quest in science today is to find life that originated beyond Earth. […]

Intelligent aliens, if they exist in the galaxy or the Universe, might be detectable from a variety of signals: electromagnetic, from planet modification, or because they’re spacefaring. But we haven’t […]

The ingredients for life are everywhere, but so far the only life we know of comes from Earth. Here’s how that might change. Ever since human beings first turned our eyes […]

Here on Earth, all the right conditions occurred for intelligent life to come about, but the nearest aliens, if they’re on another world, are light years away. But it doesn’t […]

It took the Universe 9.2 billion years to create the Earth, and another 4 billion for complex life. Could we have gotten there faster? The story of how the Universe came […]

In the aftermath of everything we’ve learned about what’s in the Universe, we can make much better estimates of how many alien civilizations are out there. In 1961, scientist Frank Drake […]

For every planet that orbits a star like our own, there are likely thousands of ‘orphan planets’ wandering the galaxy alone. Here in the Solar System, we can watch our star’s […]

Are we looking for life in all the wrong ways, like SETI with smoke signals? A little over 80 years ago, humanity first began broadcasting radio and television signals with enough […]

What if alien life — or even intelligence — don’t look like what we’re searching for? When the original Star Trek premiered, it was revolutionary for depicting sentient, intelligent species other than humans, living […]

If December’s best natural sky show seems to get better every year, it isn’t your imagination. It’s science, and it’s spectacular! Every year, the Earth travels some 940 million kilometers […]

It isn’t about saving us from aliens at all. “To be on my very first spacewalk, to be outside, and to have contamination in my suit to the point that I […]

The red planet is nearby, cool, sunny, and was once potentially habitable. Could it someday be that way again? “It would be great some day to have astronauts in a rover […]

Now we know, on every scale. “There is no such thing as perpetual tranquillity of mind while we live here; because life itself is but motion, and can never be without […]

This isn’t an XZibit joke; it’s a real scientific question. And the answer may be that it’s possible after all. “People who work every day are kind of scared of things […]

With liquid water, an energy source, and the perfect raw ingredients, Enceladus might be the holy grail we’ve been seeking. This article is written by contributing author Jesse Shanahan. Jesse is […]

Have you heard that life is unlikely around low-mass, red dwarf stars? It might be time to rethink that flawed conclusion. “Laws of nature mixed with evolutionary/historical contingencies allow for […]

The red planet once wasn’t so different from Earth. Here’s what happened. “Mars’ atmosphere is so thin, you do not need a lot of streamlining. By the time the ship […]

But are any of these potentially Earth-like worlds actually inhabited? Here are the prospects. “It isn’t only the beauty of the night sky that thrills me. It’s the sense I […]

There’s never been a more important time to be aware of how the fate of the Earth depends on us. “We only have one planet that serves as an example and […]

The press says yes. But what does the science say? “This isn’t my life anymore, Mulder. I’m done chasing monsters in the dark.” –Dana Scully, X-files Without a doubt, one […]

SETI is searching for the same signals humans were producing in the 1960s. Why wouldn’t aliens do better? “I know perfectly well that at this moment the whole universe is listening […]