Artist impression of WASP b and its star.
NASA, ESA, CSA, and J. Olmsted (STScI)
The James Webb space telescope is making the headlines again – this time completing its first chemical inventory of a distant, exotic world.
NASA/JPL
Some scientists are keen to send humans to Venus on a flyby.
The spiral galaxy M74 imaged by the NASA/ESA JWST.
ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-JWST Team.
Research on exoplanets over the next couple of decades could help us more accurately estimate how many intelligent alien civilisations there are in our galaxy.
Realistic colour view of Jupiter’s moon Europa.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute
There may be life on Jupiter’s moon Europa or Saturn moon’s Enceladus.
Liu Xu / Xinhua / AP
Have astronomers finally found evidence of intelligent found life beyond Earth?
A panorama stitched together from about 100 individual Curiosity images. The ‘door’ is circled, and is tiny and hard to see at this scale.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
We should not be surprised that some of the innumerable rocks on Mars have weird shapes, because many have been sand-blasted by wind erosion for billions of years.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
A photo of ‘doorway’ on Mars shows how ready our minds are to see significance and signs of life in the natural world.
Pluto, the largest of the dwarf planets. This image was taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft.
NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
The dwarf planets in our Solar System are cold, dark, far away and full of surprises.
A frame from A Trip to the Moon.
wikipedia
Some people are outraged that human negligence will disfigure the Moon. But that’s not the main issue.
CSIRO
Astronomers hunting extraterrestrials were excited to discover an intriguing signal, but closer inspection has revealed it wasn’t aliens.
Scientists have spotted a Jupiter-like planet surviving the death of its star.
Credit: W. M. Keck Observatory/Adam Makarenko
For the first time ever, astronomers have astrophysical evidence that Jupiter and many other planets will survive the death of the Sun.
NASA / Tim Pyle
By studying the chemical makeup of binary stars, astronomers found many planetary systems are far less peaceful than ours.
ESO
Can the Galileo Project find alien technology?
Shutterstock
Even if aliens exist, are intelligent like humans and interested in making contact with us, what are the chances they’ll be close enough for us to hear them screaming their presence into the cosmos?
The evidence so far isn’t very specific.
IgorZh/Shutterstock
One in a million or one in ten? Mathematics can help us work out the odds of whether recent sightings of UFOs are really alien spaceships.
Mushroom-like structures on Mars.
Nasa
No conclusive evidence that extraterrestrial life exists has been found…yet.
Are microbes travelling around in the galaxy?
Nuttawut Uttamaharad
A new study argues we should search for microbial life rather than human-like aliens.
A tiny speck of asteroid dust, circled, can only be manipulated by a glass needle.
ISAS JAXA
A minuscule particle of asteroid dust has helped reveal how celestial rocks like Earth might have sprouted life.
People who believe aliens have visited Earth are less likely to trust the 2020 election results.
Colin Anderson Productions pty ltd/DigitalVision via Getty Images
Americans who believe aliens have visited Earth are more likely than disbelievers to say that Joe Biden is not the legitimate winner of the 2020 presidential election.
Landing on Mars is extremely difficult.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Scientists preparing to land the Rosalind Franklin rover in a few years are nervously awaiting the landing of Nasa’s Perseverance rover.