Analysis of 166 stars found almost a quarter--much more than expected--had small, rocky planets, which should force a change in thinking on the overall frequency of such bodies. Adam Hinterthuer reports...
Two of the world's most accomplished teams of exoplanet hunters are at odds over one group's claimed detection of a world billed as the most habitable planet yet discovered outside the solar system...
A newfound "super-Earth" just 20 light-years away appears to reside in the habitable zone of its host star
A new album from the group One Ring Zero envisions a journey through the solar system and beyond
A new book highlights the most unique locations in the solar system, some of which are surprisingly close to home
A new book highlights the most unique locations in the solar system, some of which are surprisingly close to home
A planetary system 125 light-years away could represent the largest collection of known worlds outside the solar system
The influential decadal survey champions the pursuit of potentially habitable worlds but offers few details for the near future
A blue-ribbon National Academy of Sciences committee released its decadal survey of astronomy and astrophysics projects August 13, revealing its recommendations for 2012 to 2021.
Dark energy and exoplanets prioritized by decadal survey.
Podcast host Steve Mirsky talks with human evolution expert Kate Wong about the small group of humans who survived tough times beginning about 195,000 years ago and gave rise to all of us, a story told in the cover article of the August issue of Scientific American, our 165th anniversary edition...
The night skies are littered with distant planets, but what are they really like? Theoretical models suggest that a surprising number of "exoplanets" could be similar to Earth—and may even support life...
Titan, Saturn's largest moon, does not harbor alien life as far as anyone knows, but the prospects for extraterrestrial biology there are about as good there as anywhere else in the solar system...
LINDAU, Germany—What steps led to the origin of life on Earth? Scientists may be zeroing in on that most profound of questions. “We’ve gone a long way to showing” the processes that “set the stage” for cellular life on Earth, Jack Szostak said Tuesday here in his talk at the 60th annual Nobel Laureate Lectures at Lindau.Recent findings—such as that life seems to be everywhere on Earth—have encouraged scientific inquiries into the nature of life’s beginnings, said Szostak...
A massive overflow from a dam in 2002 carved a channel several meters deep into the bedrock in just days
NASA's planet hunter has identified more than 700 candidate extrasolar worlds that have yet to be confirmed, including some that may be Earth-size
Titan, Saturn's largest moon and the second-biggest natural satellite in the solar system, is an unquestionably interesting place. It's a world with a thick atmosphere and with lakes, fog and rainfall—only with liquid hydrocarbons rather than liquid water...
Bountiful carbonate minerals in a rock outcrop on the Red Planet could have formed under watery greenhouse conditions billions of years ago
In addition to reacting to news as it breaks, we work to anticipate what will happen. Here we contemplate 12 possibilities and rate their likelihood of happening by 2050
Ewoks and the Na'vi may be pure fiction, but Endor and Pandora, the moons they inhabit, appear closer to reality
