Despite its extreme conditions, featuring surface temperatures that can melt lead, volcanoes that spew lava, and thick clouds ...
Suddenly, everyone is talking about aliens. After decades on the cultural margins, the question of life in the Universe beyond Earth is having its day in the sun. The next big multibillion-dollar ...
If we discover alien life, what will it look like? We have no way of knowing, but the hunt for extraterrestrial life can now include purple bacteria, according to a group of astronomers who are ...
If one day scientists discover evidence of extraterrestrial life, how will they tell the world? How certain will they be of their discovery, and how will the public know what sense to make of it?
On many exoplanets, the best clue that life is present may be a purple hue. New research into some of Earth's most extreme bacteria explains why. To find life on far-off planets, astronomers may ...
May 2, 2024 — Recent reports of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope finding signs of life on a distant planet understandably sparked excitement. A new study challenges this finding, but also ...
Purple is the new green, as far as aliens are concerned, anyway. If you were asked to imagine an alien planet, it would be reasonable to imagine a green earth-like rock orbiting somewhere in a ...
In a little more than 30 years, we went from knowing only of the planets in our star system to discovering over 5,000 distant worlds spread across the cosmos. So far, none have looked quite like ...
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In 2020, scientists detected a gas called phosphine in the atmosphere of an Earth-sized rocky planet. Knowing of no way that ...
NASA's Perseverance Mars rover is collecting samples that could be evidence of ancient alien life. But NASA's Mars Sample Return mission to bring them to Earth will now cost $11 billion and take two ...
“Dragonfly is a spectacular science mission with broad community interest, and we are excited to take the next steps on this mission," said NASA administrator Nicky Fox, of the agency's Science ...
A NASA solar sail mission meant to test new space travel materials in Earth's orbit is scheduled to lift off no sooner than April 24, the space agency announced on Thursday (April 11). Named the ...