Stories by Allison Gasparini

A newly spotted world is just perplexingly dense

Two orbiting stars are causing unsustainably large tides as they draw closer together

Hints of water vapor on a world called GJ 486 b could just as well come from the planet’s host star

If Martian microbes were like those in this Earth lagoon, they could have survived the Red Planet’s primordial desiccation

A strange discovery could provide a window into the universe’s earliest galaxies

A new study suggests that billions of years ago microbes may have thrived on Mars before succumbing to freezing temperatures of their own making

Organisms on Earth produce a wide array of durable “biofluorescent” materials. If those on other planets do, too, the Compact Color Biofinder should be able to detect them

Images from Japan’s Himawari-8 spacecraft shed light on the red supergiant star’s remarkable fading

In the far future, we could reveal detailed views of distant worlds by turning our home star into a gravitational lens