Newfound Exoplanets around Barnard’s Star Resolve Long-Standing Astronomical Quest
Four small, newly discovered worlds are less than six light-years away from Earth, and their discovery reinforces a cautionary tale from planet hunting’s prehistory
If Life on Mars Ever Existed, This Bizarre Rock May Tell Us
The intriguing chemistry of a rock collected by the Perseverance rover could trace to microbial activity—or not
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Life May Have Emerged a Cosmic Eyeblink after the Big Bang
New simulations suggest that habitable worlds could have begun forming only 200 million years after the big bang
If Aliens Looked at Earth from Far Away, What Might They See?
The question of whether aliens can detect our modern civilization depends on what signs they’re looking for—and, crucially, their distance from us
To Find Life on Mars, Make Microbes Wiggle
Could tiny swimming microbes help us unlock the mysteries of extraterrestrial life?
Why Elon Musk’s ‘Fork in the Road’ Is Really a Dead End
Elon Musk’s Fork in the Road isn’t just a sculpture—it’s a monument to the tech world’s obsession with civilizational survival, which has its roots in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence
Nearby Habitable-Zone Exoplanet May Be a World of Fire and Ice
A newly confirmed exoplanet around a nearby sunlike star might be astronomers’ best chance yet to look for life beyond the solar system—but it’s still no place like home
Asteroid Bennu Is Packed with Life’s Building Blocks, New Studies Confirm
Material retrieved from the asteroid Bennu by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft shows that all the basic building blocks of life were astonishingly widespread in the early solar system
NASA’s Mars Sample Return Program Faces Stark Choices
NASA sees two paths for saving its beleaguered plan to retrieve materials from the Red Planet but won’t choose between them until 2026
The U.S. Drone Panic Mirrors UFO Overreactions
We need less uproar over everyday drones and more critical attention about ones near airports and other restricted airspace
Scientists Discover Earth Life inside an Asteroid Sample
Material from asteroid Ryugu riddled with earthly microbes provides a cautionary tale for scientists seeking signs of alien life
Why We Probably Won’t Find Aliens Anytime Soon
Odds are that we’re not truly alone in the cosmos. But practically speaking, we might as well be