NASA
We should not rule out taking a closer look at exoplanets that have a poorly oxygenated atmosphere.
Oxia Planum on Mars – where the rover was set to land.
Nasa
The European space agency will need both a launch vehicle and a lander platform to launch its ExoMars rover without help from Russia.
Artist’s impression of exoplanet KELT-11 b.
Impression by Léa Changeat.
AI loves to cheat, but new research shows it doesn’t do so when analysing the atmospheres of exoplanets.
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?
Artist’s impression of ‘Oumuamua.
ESO/M. Kornmesser
There’s a good reason why so many scientists disagree with claims that Earth has been visited by aliens.
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.
Perseverance in action.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Methane gas in the atmosphere is a tantalising hint suggesting that life could exists on Mars.
China’s Tianwen-1 blasts off.
STR/EPA
If China succeeds, it will be the first country ever to visit and land on Mars on its first try.
Yuriy Mazur/Shutterstock
Aliens might want to contact us for the same reasons we are looking for them.
Parkes radio telescope.
CSIRO/wikipedia
One way forward would be to abandon the traditional approach of using single-dish telescopes for SETI.
Shutterstock
Considering what we know about the key ingredients for life’s formation on Earth, here are three explanations for how this process may have occurred on our sister planet.
NASA’s Curiosity Rover takes a selfie on Mars in June, 2018.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The clouds of Venus may harbour alien life. But where else?
Composite image of Venus from data from NASA’s Magellan spacecraft and Pioneer Venus Orbiter.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Scientists don’t claim to have evidence of life on Venus but they have ruled out pretty much everything else.
Illustration of NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
The Perseverance rover onboard Mars
2020 is our best bet for finding life on the red planet.
Pluto, with its basin Sputnik Planitia on the right.
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Alex Parker
Pluto began hot inside, study of its surface fractures suggests
Is intelligent life bad news for diversity?
GUDKOV ANDREY/Shutterstock
Evolution seems to lead to increasing complexity of species. But perhaps a dominant, intelligent species like humans will always end up destroying itself.
An exoplanet and its atmosphere pass in front of its star (artist’s impression, from an imaginary point near to the planet).
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
New research expands the pool of habitable worlds to include super-Earths with hydrogen-rich atmospheres.
They probably won’t look anything like this.
Martina Badini/Shutterstock
The Earth may be crawling with undiscovered creatures with a different biochemistry to life as we know it.
SpaceX’s Dragon 2 will carry humans for the first time in 2020.
NASA/SpaceX
From alien life to human spaceflight, 2020 may deliver some exciting news.
sdecoret/Shutterstock
Scientists can’t expect the unexpected if they’re not open-minded about how their theories might be wrong.