With more than 5,000 known exoplanets, astronomers are shifting their focus from discovering additional distant worlds to identifying which are good candidates for further study.
The technology of an advanced alien civilization is likely to produce many signs that could be detected across the vastness of space. Two astronomers explain the search for technosignatures.
Astronomers think the most likely place to find life in the galaxy is on super-Earths, like Kepler-69c, seen in this artist’s rendering.
NASA Ames/JPL-CalTech
Newly discovered super-Earths add to the list of planets around other stars that offer the best chance of finding life. An astronomer explains what makes these super-Earths such excellent candidates.
TRAPPIST-1e is a rocky exoplanet in the habitable zone of a star 40 light-years from Earth and may have water and clouds, as depicted in this artist’s impression.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Wikimedia Commons
Life on Earth has dramatically changed the chemistry of the planet. Astronomers will measure light that bounces off distant planets to look for similar clues that they host life.
A professor of religion and science explains different views on immortality, from the religious perspective of President Jimmy Carter to the scientific, secular take of Carl Sagan.
A panorama stitched together from about 100 individual Curiosity images. The ‘door’ is circled, and is tiny and hard to see at this scale.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
We should not be surprised that some of the innumerable rocks on Mars have weird shapes, because many have been sand-blasted by wind erosion for billions of years.
This year, two groups of astronomers plan to send messages containing information about humans and the location of Earth toward parts of space they think may be home to intelligent life.
The Hubble Space Telescope was born from a previous decadal survey. What leaps forward will come from this one?
NASA Johnson/Flickr
The astronomy and astrophysics decadal survey for the 2020s lays out plans to search for life on distant planets, understand the formation of galaxies and solve deep mysteries of physics.
Perseverance took a selfie next to its biggest accomplishment yet – the two small drill holes where the rover took samples of Martian rocks.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Perseverance and its helicopter sidekick, Ingenuity, have been on Mars for nearly nine months. The duo have taken rock samples, performed first flights and taken images of the delta in Jezero Crater.
Artist illustration of an exoplanet.
dottedhippo/iStock via Getty Images
Billions of galaxies are in the universe, with billions of stars in every galaxy. Could billions of planets be out there too?
The worldwide fascination with UFOs started in the late 1940s after a few incidents made the news in the U.S.
David Zaitz/The Image Bank via Getty Images
The history of UFOs weaves together public fascination, government secrecy and cultural phenomena. Recent news and shifts in the government’s stance on UFOs are giving new life to the mystery.
Screenshot from a Depart of Defense video of an unidentified aerial phenomenon.
US Department of Defense/US Navy
A new nine-page report, requested by Congress, doesn’t say what the 144 UFO sightings from 2004 to 2021 are, but does say that the government wants to learn more.
Some UFO sightings appear to demonstrate ‘advanced technology’. The Pentagon has confirmed some threaten flight safety, and potentially national security.