Artist’s impression of a Dyson sphere.
Marc Ward/Shutterstock
An excess of infrared light from seven stars are intriguing astronomers.
A still from footage showing Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.
US Department of Defense/US Navy
Several scientific projects are aiming to investigate UFO sightings.
Parkes radio telescope.
CSIRO/wikipedia
One way forward would be to abandon the traditional approach of using single-dish telescopes for SETI.
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.
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.
Shutterstock
We asked astronomers: are we alone in the Universe? The answer was surprisingly consistent
The Conversation 33,5 MB (download)
'I think that we will discover life outside of Earth in my lifetime. If not that, then in your lifetime,' one astronomer told us.
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.
Andy Rain/EPA
Deeply divisive issues like Brexit are seeping into the way people interact with one another, undermining trust and tolerance of others.
Enigmatic Europa.
NASA
NASA’s Europa Clipper mission just got the green light - here’s what it could achieve.
Pixabay
Listen up, conspiracy theorists – it is virtually impossible that there could be alien visitors on Earth.
Methane detected at Mars’ Gale Crater (the centre picture).
Kevin Gill/Flickr
For the first time, an instrument orbiting Mars and a rover on the surface have detected methane simultaneously – raising hopes for finding life on the red planet.
Mars seen by the Viking orbiter.
NASA/JPL/USGS
There’s enough dissolved oxygen in the salty lake below Mars’ surface to support simple lifeforms such as sponges. Here’s what that means for space exploration.
Mars seen by Viking.
NASA / USGS
If we find microbes on Mars, it will be difficult to exclude the possibility that we have accidentally brought them there from Earth.
False colour mosaic made from infrared data collected by the Cassini spacecraft.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute
Scientists discover rare molecules on Titan which suggests it’s creating the building blocks of life.
The ALMA telescope is searching.
ESO/C. Malin
Astronomers in Puerto Rico have picked up signal from a faint star that’s not like anything they’ve seen before.
Artist’s concept of the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft approaching Mars.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Musk dismisses one of the main technical challenges of being on the Martian surface: the temperature.
Should we make contact with alien life?
Shutterstock/adike
We continue to search for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. But if we find ET there are those who question whether we should make contact or not.
Shutterstock
Mysterious radiation that appears to come from star HD 164595 is more likely to have a terrestrial origin.
Alpha Centauri is actually the outer star (bottom right) of The Pointers, which point to the Southern Cross.
Y. Beletsky (LCO)/ESO
A US$100-million plan has been announced to send tiny probes out in space in search of life elsewhere in the universe. But are they looking in the right place?
Artist’s impressiong of the Square Kilometre Array, which will revolutionise our ability to detect fast radio bursts.
SKA Project Development Office and Swinburne Astronomy Productions - Swinburne Astronomy Productions for SKA Project Development Office
A technological revolution in astronomical observations could be the key to understanding the perplexing phenonenon known as ‘fast radio bursts’ from outer space.