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Articles on Aliens

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The TOI-700 star system is home to four planets, including two in its habitable zone that could host liquid water. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Distant star TOI-700 has two potentially habitable planets orbiting it – making it an excellent candidate in the search for life

With more than 5,000 known exoplanets, astronomers are shifting their focus from discovering additional distant worlds to identifying which are good candidates for further study.
Astronomers think the most likely place to find life in the galaxy is on super-Earths, like Kepler-69c, seen in this artist’s rendering. NASA Ames/JPL-CalTech

Super-Earths are bigger, more common and more habitable than Earth itself – and astronomers are discovering more of the billions they think are out there

Newly discovered super-Earths add to the list of planets around other stars that offer the best chance of finding life. An astronomer explains what makes these super-Earths such excellent candidates.
TRAPPIST-1e is a rocky exoplanet in the habitable zone of a star 40 light-years from Earth and may have water and clouds, as depicted in this artist’s impression. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Wikimedia Commons

To search for alien life, astronomers will look for clues in the atmospheres of distant planets – and the James Webb Space Telescope just proved it’s possible to do so

Life on Earth has dramatically changed the chemistry of the planet. Astronomers will measure light that bounces off distant planets to look for similar clues that they host life.
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

A ‘doorway’ on Mars? How we see things in space that aren’t there

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.
Scientists think there are 300 million habitable planets in the Milky Way, and some may be home to intelligent life. Bruno Gilli/ESO

Blasting out Earth’s location with the hope of reaching aliens is a controversial idea – two teams of scientists are doing it anyway

This year, two groups of astronomers plan to send messages containing information about humans and the location of Earth toward parts of space they think may be home to intelligent life.
Perseverance took a selfie next to its biggest accomplishment yet – the two small drill holes where the rover took samples of Martian rocks. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Perseverance’s first major successes on Mars – an update from mission scientists

Perseverance and its helicopter sidekick, Ingenuity, have been on Mars for nearly nine months. The duo have taken rock samples, performed first flights and taken images of the delta in Jezero Crater.

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