Beyond that, in the decades to come, we might be able to see the colours of an exoplanet’s surface, and determine if plant life might be present there. And then we can search for changes in a planet’s ...

Are aliens real? The question has animated conspiracy theories for decades and enthralled at least one former president of the United States. In a recent interview, Barack Obama became the first ...

Recent observations suggest that scientists have identified potential microbial fingerprints in the atmospheres of other planets, raising intriguing questions about the possibility of alien life ...

But the real truth is that alien life on other planets could be even stranger than floating balloons or amorphous organisms floating in layers in water. Here on Earth, we have carbon-based life forms, ...

For decades, scientists have grappled with a profound question known as the Fermi Paradox: if the galaxy is teeming with the potential for extraterrestrial life, why is the cosmos so quiet? A new ...

Life may not get blasted off any of the known "super-Earth" worlds as readily as it can from our planet, scientists find. The discovery suggests that any intelligent aliens that develop on such ...

To support alien life, a planet doesn’t have to be exactly like Earth, but it does need a few key ingredients. First, it ...

A new study used mathematical formulas and demonstrated that it’s highly unlikely life began on Earth. Instead, the researcher points to panspermia, a theory that life or the ingredients for life came ...

The afternoon of 7 August 1996 isn’t a time that sticks in many people’s minds. But if things had worked out differently, it might have been etched into our collective memory. At 1.15pm, US President ...

The best reason to send humans to Mars isn’t for guts or glory—or the construction of colonies to safeguard against existential Earth-bound risks. Instead it’s to answer a single, simple question: Is ...

Turns out evidence of alien life might well have been discovered much closer to home.