Extraterrestrial Life

The origin of Ceres' intermittent plumes is unclear

NASA's long-term vision, released by the agency's astrophysics division, restates its broad and popular themes for scientists to pursue including "Are We Alone?" and "How Did We Get Here?"

Astronomers may have discovered a moon orbiting an alien planet, but the signal is far from definitive

An ancient lake and evidence for flowing water today aid hopes that microbes evolved on the Red Planet

The previously unknown microbe was tough enough to survive stringent sterilization at two locations. Might it survive a trip to Mars?

Where did the Red Planet’s carbon dioxide blanket and liquid surface water go? NASA’s Maven mission will launch next week to investigate

NASA’s premier planet-hunting scope turns up 647 possible Earth-sized worlds in the Milky Way

The first discovery of a rocky, watery object beyond our solar system shows how planets might get their oceans

In this excerpt from Five Billion Years of Solitude author Lee Billings chronicles the pioneering scientists who have led the hunt for extraterrestrial intelligence in their quest to answer the haunting question: Is humanity alone in the universe?

NASA calls for rover instrument proposals, but some resent the space lost to storage of samples for retrieval by an unspecified future mission

Although the Kepler space telescope's stabilization system is beyond repair, it has produced reams of data that have yet to be fully searched for exoplanets. John Matson reports.

Since it landed on Mars on August 6, 2012, the Curiosity rover has done photography, geology and roamed a good kilometer. John Matson reports