Alien Life | Astronomy.com

You’re almost certainly not being visited by aliens

David J. Eicher — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 21:36:10 +0000

The recent furor over drones, planes, helicopters, aliens, or whatever centered on aerial sightings in New Jersey is causing a flap. Given the huge number of sightings and the tenor of alarm from many, the Federal Aviation Administration has issued 22 temporary flight restrictions along the approach paths to Newark International Airport and a fewContinue reading "You’re almost certainly not being visited by aliens"

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Could deuterium be the key to finding aliens?

Alison Klesman — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 15:06:21 +0000

To find advanced civilizations, you don’t need to go hunting for megastructures or hypothetical space probes. You could find civilizations just a few centuries ahead of us by looking for a key element: hydrogen. While hydrogen is everywhere, not all of it is of the same type. Several hydrogen isotopes exist, and deuterium is oneContinue reading "Could deuterium be the key to finding aliens? "

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How we might look for life in the universe — even if we can’t recognize it

Alison Klesman — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 20:00:00 +0000

We have only one example of biology forming in the universe – life on Earth. But what if life can form in other ways? How do you look for alien life when you don’t know what alien life might look like? These questions are preoccupying astrobiologists, who are scientists who look for life beyond Earth. Astrobiologists haveContinue reading "How we might look for life in the universe — even if we can’t recognize it"

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Dark energy sheds light on life in the cosmos

Mark Zastrow — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 11:00:00 +0000

In the 1960s, celebrated radio astronomer Frank Drake proposed his eponymous equation, which attempted to wrangle with the probability of finding extraterrestrial life — at least, the kind that we could identify through radio broadcasts — somewhere out there in the universe. One of the key parameters of that formulation is the rate of starContinue reading "Dark energy sheds light on life in the cosmos"

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Short-lived organics on Ceres hint at a past ocean — and conditions ripe for life

Alison Klesman — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 15:09:24 +0000

Dwarf planet Ceres is one of the most enigmatic worlds in our solar system — one whose secrets scientists have only been uncovering in the last decade. When NASA’s Dawn mission arrived in 2015, it uncovered an active, salt-rich world that might have — or once have had — an ocean. Now, new research providesContinue reading "Short-lived organics on Ceres hint at a past ocean — and conditions ripe for life"

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The “Wow! Signal,” not surprisingly, was a dud

Mark Zastrow — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 11:00:00 +0000

One of the most enduring mysteries in astronomy may have just been solved — and sorry folks, it’s not aliens. In a paper posted last month to the arXiv preprint server, a team of astronomers report they may have finally found the source of the Wow! Signal. Overnight on August 15, 1977, the Big EarContinue reading "The “Wow! Signal,” not surprisingly, was a dud"

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Why we aren’t alone in the universe — but might as well be

Alison Klesman — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Are we alone in the universe? The question has tugged at humanity ever since we discovered the enormity of the cosmos. In 1950, Enrico Fermi postulated his famous paradox: If life is common enough in the universe to give rise to us, then where is everybody? Recently, a philosopher has advanced a proposal to resolveContinue reading "Why we aren’t alone in the universe — but might as well be"

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Did Perseverance find hints of ancient martian life?

Michael E. Bakich — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 17:14:46 +0000

NASA’s Perseverance rover, which has operated on Mars since February 2021, recently found a large rock containing organic compounds that may have been microscopic life in the distant past. The results are as yet uncertain, so scientists are not ready to proclaim that life once existed on the Red Planet. The discovery came when theContinue reading "Did Perseverance find hints of ancient martian life?"

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Greenhouse gases could indicate alien life — if we ever find them

Elizabeth Gamillo — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 19:33:01 +0000

In a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal, astronomers propose looking for greenhouse gases in the atmospheres of exoplanets using tools like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). But rather than searching for an advanced species suffering the consequences of climate change, such gases might be a sign of something else: terraforming. Terraforming isContinue reading "Greenhouse gases could indicate alien life — if we ever find them"

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Did we find signs of life on K2-18 b? Not yet, but we might.

Astronomy Staff — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Welcome to the Astronomy.com roundtable where our editors help explain (and sometimes debate) hot topics. This week, Astronomy’s Dave Eicher, Alison Klesman, Daniela Mata, and Mark Zastrow weigh in on the possibility of life on the exoplanet K2-18 b. Astronomy.com: The exoplanet known as K2-18 b was discovered with the Kepler Space Telescope in 2015.Continue reading "Did we find signs of life on K2-18 b? Not yet, but we might."

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