But the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope compels us to add, “so far.” Beginning with its 1990 launch, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope revolutionized our conception of the Universe. This photo of […]

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 […]

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, […]

We just observed the first ‘lunar formation’ in an exoplanetary system. This one image, above, is the first to show moons actively forming around a planet. This colourful image shows […]

If our nearest star has an Earth-like planet, here’s how we’ll see it. As seen from up close, the signs of not only life, but our intelligent, technologically advanced human civilization […]

Planets are either rocky, like Earth, or gas-rich, like Neptune, with no in-between. What are the different types of planets that exist in the Universe? If all you could see […]

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 […]

How two seemingly distinct exoplanet systems turned out to be related. Practically every star in the Milky Way has a similar origin story. At some point in the past, a molecular […]

If you want to find life in the Universe, this is how you do it. When it comes to uncovering the ultimate truths about reality, we can only reap what we […]

Debris from Pluto-sized collisions, not aliens, are streaming through the galaxy. In 2017, scientists discovered an object passing through our Solar System that was unlike anything else we had ever seen. […]

Think there are habitable super-Earths out there? Think again. Here in our Solar System, we have two very distinct types of planets: small, terrestrial, rocky worlds, with thin (or no) atmospheres […]

What we’ve seen isn’t necessarily what we get, but the most common world doesn’t look like ours. There’s a very common myth out there in astronomy: the idea that the Sun […]

The smallest and faintest stars of all, even the failed stars that didn’t make it, are hiding some fascinating secrets. You might have thought that if we were going to […]

How many potentially habitable planets are there? We sincerely don’t know. One of the most compelling scientific goals humanity has set for itself is to find extraterrestrial life: biological activity originating […]

We haven’t discovered life beyond our Solar System yet, but we’re closer than ever before. Over the past 30 years, we’ve gone from zero exoplanets to thousands. With each new […]

We just found a system that we can’t explain. Here’s what’s going on. One of the most fascinating facts about the Universe is that there’s so much of it out there. […]

In 2006, the IAU demoted Pluto. Here’s what we know today. In 2006, the last planet in our Solar System suffered an unforgettable insult, as Pluto — known for generations as our ninth […]

The largest moon around our last planet didn’t originate with Neptune. When it comes to the moons of our Solar System, there’s only one planet that doesn’t fit in with our […]

There are exposed planetary cores orbiting stars, and we may have already found them. When we take a look at the planets in our Solar System, there’s a pretty clear difference […]

One look at the uncertainties and the assumptions changes the story tremendously. Is there intelligent life out there in the Milky Way beyond our own Solar System? If so, how […]

Maybe 100% of stars don’t have planets, after all. When stars form in the Universe, they’re created in giant bursts. A stellar nursery in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy […]

The dream of an ‘Earth-like’ planet showcases our astrobiological ignorance. Over the past decade, our understanding of what planets exist around stars other than our own has exploded. The number […]

It’s not just for Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars. Not even close. Shortly after Earth first formed first formed, life quickly took hold, thriving ever since. Both reflected sunlight on a […]

It’s one of only five spacecraft that will exit the Solar System, and the only one we have a chance to aim at another star. Of all the spacecraft ever launched, […]

We’ve come fantastically far in our understanding of the distant Universe. Here’s how we’ll go even farther. Sometime in 2021, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will launch, deploy, and begin science […]

A fascinating podcast on the topic with NASA scientist Dr. Jessie Christiansen. How many planets are out there in the Universe? How many stars have planets, and what kinds of […]

The closest star to our own doesn’t just host one rocky planet, but a second, larger ‘super-Earth’ much farther out. Of all the stars in the Universe, the closest one to […]

Unlike most articles that are titled with a question, the answer isn’t automatically “no.” Announced on January 6, 2020, NASA’s TESS mission has just discovered its first Earth-sized, habitable zone […]

On May 9, 2016, the prior transit of Mercury occurred, and was photographed many times on a practically continuous basis by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. Transits of Mercury are rare, […]

A theoretical view of a distant world so far from our Sun that our Solar System appears barely brighter than the remaining stars in the sky. ( Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)) Pluto […]