Search for Life
Why ‘Contact’ still resonates after 25 years
25 years ago, the film Contact made its theatrical debut starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey and told the story…
Will Mars finally answer, ‘Are we alone?’
We recently examined how and why the planet Venus could answer the longstanding question: Are we alone? Despite its harsh…
A Swarm of Swimming Robots to Search for Life Under the Ice on Europa
When Galileo pointed his telescope at Jupiter 400 years ago, he saw three blobs of light around the giant planet,…
Does the Entire Planet Have a Mind of its Own?
What is humanity? Do our minds set us apart from the rest of nature and from the rest of Earth?…
Astronomers Scan the Center of the Milky Way for Any Sign of Intelligent Civilizations. Nothing but Silence.
Are there civilizations somewhere else in the Universe? Somewhere else in the Milky Way? That's one of our overarching questions,…
Remember When Life was Found in a Martian Meteorite? Turns out, it was Just Geology
The Alan Hills meteorite is a part of history to Mars aficionados. It came from Mars and meteorite hunters discovered…
Is That a Fossil on Mars? Non-Biological Deposits can Mimic Organic Structures
There's nothing easy about searching for evidence of life on Mars. Not only do we somehow have to land a…
Greenland’s Ice Sheet is Similar in Many Ways to the Solar System’s Icy Worlds and Can Teach Us How to Search for Life
Many regions on Earth are temperate, nutrient-rich, stable environments where life seems to thrive effortlessly. But not all of Earth.…
Rogue Planets Could be Habitable
The search for potentially habitable planets is focused on exoplanets—planets orbiting other stars—for good reason. The only planet we know…
The Interior of Enceladus Looks Really Great for Supporting Life
When NASA's Voyager spacecraft visited Saturn's moon Enceladus, they found a body with young, reflective, icy surface features. Some parts…