Astrobiology

Alien Minds I: Are Extraterrestrial Civilizations Likely to Evolve?

Paul Patton begins a three-part series on the evolutionary biology of aliens. Will they follow the same direction as life…

9 years ago

Is There a Kraken in Kraken Mare? What Kind of Life Would We Find on Titan?

Could there be life on Saturn’s large moon Titan? Asking the question forces astrobiologists and chemists to think carefully and…

9 years ago

More Evidence That Comets May Have Brought Life to Earth

The idea of panspermia -- that life on Earth originated from comets or asteroids bombarding our planet -- is not…

9 years ago

Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” II: Questioning the Hart-Tipler Conjecture

Welcome back to our Fermi Paradox series, where we take a look at possible resolutions to Enrico Fermi's famous question,…

10 years ago

Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” I: A Lunchtime Conversation- Enrico Fermi and Extraterrestrial Intelligence

Welcome back to our Fermi Paradox series, where we take a look at possible resolutions to Enrico Fermi's famous question,…

10 years ago

Who Speaks for Earth? The Controversy over Interstellar Messaging

Should we beam messages into deep space, announcing our presence to any extraterrestrial civilizations that might be out there? Or,…

10 years ago

Defining Life II: Metabolism and Evolution as clues to Extraterrestrial Life

In the movie "Avatar", we could tell at a glance that the alien moon Pandora was teeming with alien life.…

10 years ago

Defining Life I: What are Astrobiologists Looking For?

How can astrobiologists find extraterrestrial life? In everyday life, we usually don’t have any problem telling that a dog or…

10 years ago

Communicating Across the Cosmos 4: The Quest for a Rosetta Stone

On television and in the movies, it’s so easy. Aliens almost always speak English (at least in America they do).…

10 years ago

Communicating Across the Cosmos, Part 1: Shouting into the Darkness

Over the last 20 years, astronomers have discovered several thousand planets orbiting other stars. We now know that potentially habitable…

10 years ago