When an astrobiologist says “life is hard,” they may be speaking on a cosmic level. They could mean that life itself is a puzzle we are nowhere near solving. “We’re like second graders when it comes ...

What are the chances of finding extraterrestrial life in our solar system? Frank Postberg, a professor of planetary science at Freie Universität Berlin, has published a study in Science Advances with ...

Illustration of a hypothetical planet covered in water. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. April 7, 2025, Mountain View, CA -- What if we spend decades building advanced telescopes to search for life on other ...

Scientists are unraveling the mysteries of "steam worlds"—exoplanets known as sub-Neptunes that are rich in water but orbit so close to their stars that their surfaces are shrouded in thick ...

According to popular media, the search for alien life involves advanced technology, space exploration and sometimes even government conspiracies and secret programs. But according to University of ...

What if humanity's search for life on other planets returns no hits? A team of researchers led by Dr. Daniel Angerhausen, a Physicist in Professor Sascha Quanz's Exoplanets and Habitability Group at ...

If life exists elsewhere in the universe, researchers at the University of Washington are finding the clues on Earth to help understand where to look for it. For 25 years, the program has looked at ...

This April, news reports linked the stinky gas dimethyl sulfide (DMS) in the atmosphere of a distant exoplanet called K2-18b to possible life on it. The reports, prompted by work led by astronomer ...

WASHINGTON — A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine identifies the highest priority science objectives for the first human mission to Mars, and says searching ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Dr. Lance B. Eliot is a world-renowned AI scientist and consultant. In today’s column, I explore a fascinating proposition about ...