Every so often our Earth encounters a large chunk of space debris which reminds us that our solar system still contains plenty of debris that could potentially have an impact on life on Earth. While the…
Articles on Extraterrestrial life
Displaying 141 - 159 of 159 articles
In the search for life beyond our solar system, we need to consider the system in which a planet moves, including the other planets and assorted debris that accompany it on its journey through the cosmos…
In the search for life-sustaining planets we must first choose the right host star. There are many factors that would make a star system too hostile for life to even get started, let alone survive for…
The criteria for life on other planets is the focus of the 4th Australian Exoplanet Workshop, hosted by the University of Southern Queensland this week. The first in this series on exoplanets looks at…
Astronomers have found thousands of exoplanets and the hunt is on for life beyond Earth. Once biological neighbors are identified, our planet’s philosophies and religions will need to adapt.
The Conversation organised a public question-and-answer session on Reddit in which Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, explained why searching for intelligent life is so important and…
While alien life can be seen nightly on television and in the movies, it has never been seen in space. Not so much as a microbe, dead or alive, let alone a wrinkle-faced Klingon. Despite this lack of protoplasmic…
Enrico Fermi, when asked about intelligent life on other planets, famously replied, “Where are they?” Any civilisation advanced enough to undertake interstellar travel would, he argued, in a brief period…
Given that we are unlikely to be visiting an exoplanet any time soon, astronomers have been contemplating whether it might be possible to detect indications of simple life – a biosignature – from a distance…
Last week, scientists announced the discovery of Kepler-186f, a planet 492 light years away in the Cygnus constellation. Kepler-186f is special because it marks the first planet almost exactly the same…
Rocky planets larger than Earth could not sustain life because their thick, crushing hydrogen atmospheres would be deadly…
How will future alien scientists know whether life existed in our solar system? One method may be to sift through the planetary debris left when our sun becomes a white dwarf. Astronomers are doing just…
The Curiosity rover has landed on Mars, driven around, started its scientific mission and, as of 4am today (AEDT), started reporting integrated science results. In a news conference at the American Geophysical…
In an announcement today, NASA poured cold water on rumours that its Curiosity rover had found life on Mars. Curiosity found evidence that it had landed on an ancient riverbed, and it identified some interesting…
The search for life in extreme environments is an exploration not only of the robustness of earthly life, but also of our origins. And perhaps the biggest question here is whether the earth is a unique…
The presence, size and location of an asteroid belt may determine if life can evolve on an Earth-like planet. If this is…
The building blocks of life have been discovered on Mars … in Martian meteorites that fell to Earth. Let me rephrase that: according to a paper by published in Science Express on Friday, meteorites from…
Late last week the Russian Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) announced they had successfully drilled into the elusive sub-glacial Lake Vostok, a body of water lying under nearly 4km of Antarctic…
During a lunch in the summer of 1950, physicists Enrico Fermi, Edward Teller and Herbert York were chatting about a recent New Yorker cartoon depicting aliens abducting trash cans in flying saucers. Suddenly…
Top contributors
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Professor of Planetary Geosciences, The Open University
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Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland
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Professor of Physics, Deputy Director (Solar System) at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, UCL
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University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy, University of Arizona
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Professor (Physics), University of Southern Queensland
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Lecturer, University of Southern Queensland
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Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences, The Open University
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Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Penn State
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Honorary Fellow, Space and Astronomy, CSIRO; Western Sydney University
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Professor and Director of the Australian Centre for Astrobiology, UNSW
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Professor in Philosophy of Science, Durham University
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Senior research fellow, Curtin University
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Senior Instrument Scientist, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation
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James Martin Research Fellow, Future of Humanity Institute & Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford
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Sir Bernard Lovell chair of Astrophysics, University of Manchester