The surface of Mars is cold, dry and rocky.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
Determining whether or not life exists on another planet is an extraordinarily complicated – and expensive – scientific endeavor.
Scientists have been studying the Clarkia site for nearly five decades.
Robert Patalano
While NASA rovers on the surface of Mars look for hints of life, researchers back on Earth are studying ‘echoes of life’ from ancient basins – hoping that the two sites might be similar.
Uranus is the coldest planet in the solar system.
NASA/JPL
Five of the Uranus moons might be ocean worlds − and if there’s water, there might be life.
Earth and Moon as seen by the Galileo spacecraft from a distance of 6 million km away.
NASA
Control experiments are critical in informing the search for alien life.
Hanns Glaser, Celestial phenomenon over Nuremberg, April 1561.
Zentralbibliothek Zürich
Modern reactions to unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs – what you might think of as UFOs) are similar to those of thousands of years ago.
Raggedstone / Shutterstock
The space agency hopes to get to the bottom of the many sightings being reported.
NASA’s UAP study team and newly appointed director of UAP research represent growing efforts to study and declassify UFO-related data.
AP Photo/Terry Renn
Months after a military officer made sensational claims about unexplained objects in the skies, NASA released a report loosely outlining a scientific approach for analyzing UAP reports.
The exoplanet K2-18b might host a water ocean.
Credits: Illustration: NASA, CSA, ESA, J. Olmsted (STScI), Science: N. Madhusudhan (Cambridge University)
The results are intriguing, but analysing the atmospheres of exoplanets is no easy task.
In 2021, scientists thought they had discovered phosphine in the clouds of Venus.
NASA
Alien hunters should learn from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
UFOs usually have non-extraterrestrial origins, but many have urged the government to be more transparent about UFO data.
Westend61/Westend61 via Getty Images
Whistleblower allegations that the government possesses UFOs may not be backed up by public physical evidence, but some argue that listening for extraterrestrial life is the first phase of contact.
A congressional subcommittee on unidentified anomalous phenomena met to hear testimony from military officers.
Sarah Silbiger/Bloomberg via Getty Images
All who testified before a congressional subcommittee claimed that UFOs pose a threat to national security, though there’s still no public evidence that UFOs are extraterrestrial.
SETI has been listening for markers that may indicate alien life – but is doing so ethical?
Donald Giannati via Unsplash
Three Indigenous studies scholars draw from colonial histories and explain why listening for alien life can have ethical ramifications.
NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Phosphorus is the most elusive element crucial for life as we know it – and we now have the first evidence there’s some available in the oceans of Enceladus.
There was little time for water from the Earth’s atmosphere to contaminate the meteorite after it fell.
Trustees of the Natural History Museum
In 2021, searchers recovered a meteorite that fell over the UK just hours earlier. Scientists have now reconstructed its story.
zhengzaishuru/Shutterstock
To date, we have not heard from any aliens. Nor have we seen any – but here are the fascinating projects working to change that.
The new study analysed data gathered at the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia.
Shutterstock
Can artificial intelligence transform the search for alien intelligence?
Midjourney
AI’s ability to identify ‘technosignatures’ missed by classical algorithms is an exciting step forward for radio astronomers.
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.