Alien life could exist on hot, rocky planets, sustained not by water but by a type of salty fluid, new research suggests. Reading time 3 minutes The search for alien life usually hinges on finding the ...

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 ...

As many as 200 worlds beyond our solar system discovered by astronomers may be larger than estimated, which could influence the search for extraterrestrial life. That's the theory of a team of ...

One of Britain’s most prominent space scientists believes humanity may finally get an answer to one of its oldest questions ...

Mars, Europa and Enceladus are the three most promising locations in the solar system to search for life living off cosmic rays. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate ...

The sulfurous gas steams out of the alien bloom, filling the air so fully that a lone telescope floating 700 trillion miles (over a quadrillion kilometers) away can sense it — faintly, for just a few ...

Science fiction writer and futurist Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” And perhaps that fear is what ...

We’re celebrating 180 years of Scientific American. Explore our legacy of discovery and look ahead to the future. In the late 1800s Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli pointed a telescope at Mars ...

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. Who hasn't looked into the sky and wondered if there's life out there, somewhere, looking back at ...

Historically, many scientists and society have been fascinated by the prospect of making contact with extraterrestrial ...

Within the next 20 years, human beings could discover life on other planets. It was this startling prediction—and the subsequent realization that kids sitting in elementary school classrooms today ...

High-energy particles zipping through the cosmos are harmful to life on Earth, but scientists think it could be food for potential alien life elsewhere. Saturn's moon Enceladus (shown here in a 2006 ...