Extraterrestrial Life

NASA’s former director of astrophysics plans to revolutionize space science with agile, privately funded missions

Brown University researchers have detected glass deposits on Mars that might contain evidence of past conditions and, possibly, life

Scientists have found ancient "impact glass" on the surface of Mars, which formed when asteroids struck, a billion or more years ago. If anything was alive at the time, biological materials could be trapped inside. Christopher Intagliata reports

The Thirty Meter Telescope can revolutionize astronomy and become a part of the holy mountain’s rich cultural heritage

Bright spots in the latest pictures from NASA’s mission to the dwarf planet may be water ice, researchers say

Two new studies hint at a richer picture of what’s happening on Saturn’s extraordinary icy moon Enceladus. At about 500 kilometers in diameter, Enceladus is a diminutive natural satellite.

Controversy swirls around a bold proposal for a bigger, better—and expensive—replacement for NASA’s premier space telescope

Two prominent scientists update our view of the history of life on Earth, featuring the prominent roles of oxygen and carbon dioxide, and question claims that it is fairly easy to initiate life—even on a planet such as ours

On April 30, if all goes well, after running out of fuel to fight off orbital decay NASA’s long-running MESSENGER spacecraft will end its mission to Mercury by crashing into the planet’s surface at nearly 4 kilometers per second.

The most far-seeing search ever performed for “Dyson spheres” and other artifacts of “astroengineering” comes up empty. Where is everybody?

A recent article by Samuel Arbesman in the science magazine Nautilus discusses the extraordinary sounding possibility that – just perhaps – a search for extraterrestrial intelligence could be made by looking at our DNA.

Radar measurements and models of Earthly glacial ice flows led researchers to conclude that the glaciers spotted on Mars from orbiters contain nearly 150 billion cubic meters of water. Lee Billings reports