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Astrobiology
Shortly after planet Earth formed, life took a permanent hold on our surface. But just how common is such an outcome?
Our research on a Martian meteorite provides new clues about early surface conditions on the red planet.
Nearly 200 orbital launches are scheduled for 2022.
There really might be extraterrestrials out there, attempting to make contact. Here's how science, not fiction, is attempting to find them.
From succubi to aliens, stories of abductions or other unsettling encounters have been with us for millennia. What explains them?
Shooting star or piece of space dust?
Coupled with 3D printing, biomining the Moon or Mars with microbes could sustain human colonies without constant re-supply from Earth.
The James Webb Space Telescope finally could answer the age-old question of whether we are alone in the universe.
In movies and TV shows, aliens look like pointy-eared humans. Is this realistic? If evolution is predictable, then it very well might be.
Water on Mars is key for human survival on the Red Planet, not just for drinking but for growing food and making fuel and oxygen.
Whether or not life exists elsewhere in the Universe, we can be assured of one thing: We are the only human beings in the cosmos.
The boiling new world, which zips around its star at ultraclose range, is among the lightest exoplanets found to date.
Every December, the Geminid meteor shower reaches its peak. Its 2021 show will be spectacular, but only if you do it right.
Forget little green men: These scientists say we should be more worried about little green germs.
Purely physical and chemical processes can deceive us into thinking that life is present, when it actually is not.
The stars, planets, and many moons are extremely round. Why don't they take other shapes?
Finding out we're not alone in the Universe would fundamentally change everything. Here's how we could do it.
How the search for alien life is taking place right here in our own Solar System. If you want to understand the origin of life in the Universe, you have three […]
Theoretically, we know what happened on the red planet. Here’s how we’ll find out whether we’re right. When it comes to the worlds beyond Earth in our Solar System, it’s only […]
At 35 light-years away, it’s also the 2nd coolest, 2nd widest planet ever found. Despite discovering more than 4000 exoplanets, most remain obscure. Although more than 4,000 confirmed exoplanets are known, […]
If we succeed in contacting them, will that seal humanity’s doom? One of the most wondrous questions of all concerns our place in the Universe. After 13.8 billion years of […]
The largest moon in our Solar System, often overlooked, is a water-rich world. Does that mean life? Here on Earth, life took hold very early on in our planet’s history, and […]
50% of stars are in Sun-like ‘singlet’ systems. The planetary nebulae we see just don’t line up. Around 7 billion years from now, our Sun’s life will end. As the Sun […]
And why, even at its faintest, it always outshines every other star and planet. If you’ve been looking to the west after sunset recently, you may have noticed that there’s one […]
Whether they’re gas giants or rocky planets makes all the difference for life. Over the past 30 years, we went from not knowing if there were planets like ours around other […]
While Mars is known as a frozen, red planet today, it has all the evidence we could ask for of a watery past, lasting for approximately the first 1.5 billion […]
And could Earth-based life provide the seeds for biology elsewhere? Today, on Earth, there’s an enormous variety and diversity of life on our planet. Every single surviving lifeform appears, in […]
The Universe’s idea of a ‘typical star’ has changed dramatically over time. When you look out at the Universe today, you’re not seeing it exactly as it is at one particular […]
If everything eventually dies and decays, is there a way to prolong the inevitable? Our Universe, as it exists today, puts us in an incredibly privileged position. Had we come […]
Avi Loeb says it’s aliens. Every other astronomer disagrees. Here’s why. In 2017, an astronomical event occurred that was unlike any other: for the first time, we observed an object that […]