The Earth may be crawling with undiscovered creatures with a different biochemistry to life as we know it.
People do live outside Earth – on the International Space Station! But humans have had to find a way to make the conditions there more like what we’re used to at home.
Flickr/NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center
To prepare for future Mars missions, scientists collect samples and simulate communications conditions from volcano parks on Earth.
Scale models of rockets at China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation’s booth at the International Astronautical Congress.
FOCKE STRANGMANN/EPA
Following NASA’s latest discovery of organic matter on the red planet, new findings in a salt lake in California could point to where to look for alien life.
The Viking landers in the 1970s were the last to look directly for life on Mars.
NASA/JPL
Planetary protection protocols try to make sure we don’t seed places like Mars with life from our planet. An astrobiologist argues they’re misguided – especially with human astronauts on the horizon.
Spend many months attached to the ISS and see how well you grow.
NASA
If you want to live on Mars, you’re going to need to grow food. Seeds are naturally equipped to handle challenging Earth environments, but how well can they survive what they’ll encounter off-planet?
There has been much excitement this week about the possibility of water – and life – on some newly discovered exoplanets. But we can look closer to home for evidence of ET.
Artist’s rendition of one of the billions of rocky exoplanets in our galaxy.
Did life once exist on its surface?
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Complex life may be rare in the universe because most planets become either too hot or too cold before life has a chance to get a foothold. This might explain why we have yet to bump into E.T.
Could this ever happen between close planetary neighbours?
Tom/Flickr
As far as underwhelming headlines go: “No Alien Life Found on Comet” must rank very close to the top. An article with this title appeared in the Guardian on July 6 in response to a story claiming that…
One of the many unanswered questions about the origin of life on Earth is: where did organic molecules – those containing carbon, from which life as we know it is derived – come from? Given the conditions…
Hydrothermal vents: nurseries for life on Earth?
Wolfgang Staudt/Flickr
Scientists have simulated the electrical energy produced in the Earth that may have led to life 3.5 billion years ago. Using a fuel cell, researchers from the University of Leeds and NASA’s Jet Propulsion…
Could life really exist on other planets? The most positive scientific answer we can offer is: well, maybe, but we do not yet have enough evidence for or against. Yet Milton Wainwright and colleagues from…