The Parkes radio telescope is part of the US$100 million search for life elsewhere in the universe, but the investment will also benefit other space research at The Dish.
The galaxies NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, locked in a destructive embrace.
ESA/Hubble/NASA
After a slow start, Hubble’s ultraviolet vision changed the face of astronomy.
The Kepler satellite discovers exoplanets by measuring the light drop from a star when a planet moves in front of it. Maths can uncover many more exoplanets.
Australian National University and the Niels Bohr Institute
One of the crucial variables in calculating the likelihood that alien life exists elsewhere in our galaxy is the number of stars that possess planetary systems, and the proportion of those planets that…
At the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society earlier this month, the NASA Kepler Space Telescope team announced its 1,000th discovery of a planet outside our solar system. This brings the…
Artist’s impression of the planet Kepler 62-f which could lie in the habitable zone of its host star 1,200 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra.
NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech
More than 1,000 exoplanets have now been discovered by the Kepler Space Telescope, announced NASA this month, and the figure continues to climb. Three of the newly confirmed Kepler planets are thought…
Artist’s impression of an Earth-sized planet in the Kepler 186 system. But what makes one planet more habitable than another?
NASA Ames/SETI Institute/JPL-Caltech
When it comes to finding the right kind of planet to target in the search for life elsewhere in the universe, the size of the planet matters. All planets are believed to form by a process of competitive…
A reconstruction of the path and damage caused by the asteroid that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in February 15, 2013.
Flickr/Sandia Labs
Every so often our Earth encounters a large chunk of space debris which reminds us that our solar system still contains plenty of debris that could potentially have an impact on life on Earth. While the…
In the coming years, many planets that could host life will be discovered. But which will we target in the search for life elsewhere?
IAU/L Calçada
In the search for life beyond our solar system, we need to consider the system in which a planet moves, including the other planets and assorted debris that accompany it on its journey through the cosmos…
Artists conception of the a star with two Saturn-mass planets discovered by the Kepler satellite.
NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech
In the search for life-sustaining planets we must first choose the right host star. There are many factors that would make a star system too hostile for life to even get started, let alone survive for…
Artist’s impression of a sunset on the planet Gliese 667Cc. While that planet is likely not an ideal target, we will discover planets far more like our own.
ESO/L. Calçada
The criteria for life on other planets is the focus of the 4th Australian Exoplanet Workshop, hosted by the University of Southern Queensland this week. The first in this series on exoplanets looks at…
While alien life can be seen nightly on television and in the movies, it has never been seen in space. Not so much as a microbe, dead or alive, let alone a wrinkle-faced Klingon. Despite this lack of protoplasmic…
An artist’s impression shows a pair of wildly misaligned planet-forming gas discs around both the young stars in the binary system HK Tauri.
R. Hurt (NASA/JPL-Caltech/IPAC)
Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland and Tanya Hill, Museums Victoria Research Institute
New observations of a youthful binary star system, reported today in the journal Nature, may help to explain one of exoplanetary science’s greatest unanswered questions – the peculiar orbits of so many…
In June, the popular press went wild. A planet had been discovered that was so much like Earth it was heralded as our best bet for supporting life. Positioned 16 light years away, Gliese (or GJ) 832c was…
Enrico Fermi, when asked about intelligent life on other planets, famously replied, “Where are they?” Any civilisation advanced enough to undertake interstellar travel would, he argued, in a brief period…
An artist’s conception of WISE J0855-0714.
NASA, JPL-Caltech and Penn State University
Author Douglas Adams famously had his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy remark that “space is really big”. But to my mind the sheer vastness of space is better encapsulated in the recent announcement of…
Beta Pictoris b spins faster than the fastest spinning planet in our solar system.
ESO/L. Calçada & N. Risinger (skysurvey.org)
Tanya Hill, Museums Victoria Research Institute and Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland
Over the past two decades, almost 1,500 exoplanets have been discovered orbiting distant stars – but Dutch astronomers have determined for the very first time just how fast one of those exoplanets is spinning…
Given that we are unlikely to be visiting an exoplanet any time soon, astronomers have been contemplating whether it might be possible to detect indications of simple life – a biosignature – from a distance…
In the Star Wars universe, everyone’s favourite furry aliens, the Ewoks, famously lived on the “forest moon of Endor”. In scientific terms, the Ewok’s home world would be referred to as an exomoon, which…