This Is the Most Exciting Rock Ever Found on Mars
Mysterious “leopard spots” on a Martian rock could be evidence of extraterrestrial life—or of mere lifeless chemistry. Finding out the truth may require bringing the rock back to Earth
Nope—It’s Never Aliens
Claims of alien starships visiting Earth always fall short, but people still fall for them
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Artificial Intelligence Will Let Humanity Talk to Alien Civilizations
Large language models may enable real-time communication with extraterrestrial civilizations despite the vast distances between stars. We need to start thinking about what to tell them about us
Why We Can’t Rule Out Alien Spaceships in Earth’s Atmosphere (Yet)
We can and should look harder for evidence of alien visitors to our solar system
The Strangest Alien Worlds Are beyond Astronomers’ Wildest Dreams
Alien worlds that glow like lightbulbs or harbor molten-rock rain are revealing planets’ profound cosmic diversity—and pointing the way toward finding those that truly resemble our own familiar Earth
The Science of ‘3 Body Problem’: What’s Fact and What’s Fiction?
The hit sci-fi show’s adviser and two other researchers discuss its portrayal of scientists and their technologies
Sorry, Little Green Men: Alien Life Might Actually Be Purple
Purple may be a likely color for extraterrestrial organisms, research suggests
SpaceX’s Starship Could Save NASA’s Beleaguered Mars Sample Return Mission
Facing budgetary pressure for its Mars Sample Return program, NASA has turned to private industry for ideas—perhaps with one specific company in mind
If Alien Life Is Found, How Should Scientists Break the News?
At a recent workshop, researchers and journalists debated how to announce a potential discovery of extraterrestrial life
Don’t Panic, But A Lot of Stars Seem to Eat Their Own Planets
At least one in a dozen binary stars shows signs of eating their planets
‘Interstellar’ Meteor Signal May Have Been a Truck—So What Was Collected from the Ocean Floor?
New analyses cast doubt on claims that a meteor witnessed over the South Pacific in 2014 came from another star system and raise questions about a high-profile expedition to recover the fireball’s fragments from the seafloor
JWST Will Finally Hunt for Alien Moons—And Much More
The next year of science for the James Webb Space Telescope has been selected. It includes remote galaxy observations and, at last, a hunt for exomoons