Extraterrestrial Life

Launching in 2028, China’s Tianwen-3 Mars sample return mission could bring Red Planet rocks back to Earth as early as 2031—years ahead of competing U.S.-European efforts

NASA’s astrobiology ambitions are at risk of collapsing under the White House’s proposed budget. But your voice can make a difference

After billions of dollars in spending and decades of planning, NASA may be forced to abandon precious samples of air, rock and soil on the Martian surface. Experts are furious

Dimethyl sulfide is in the news after NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope may have detected relatively high levels of it in the atmosphere of an exoplanet called K2-18 b

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope detected an intriguing compound in the atmosphere of the exoplanet K2-18 b, but scientists are divided about what the chemical means

Overall, “space miso” tastes just like regular miso—but slight differences in its microbial profile suggest that extraterrestrial conditions affect how microbes grow and flourish

Studying how extraterrestrials might communicate could help prepare for first contact and also hint at the point of language itself

Have you seen something inexplicable in the sky? Jon Kosloski, director of the U.S. Department of Defense’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, wants to hear from you

Four small, newly discovered worlds are less than six light-years away from Earth, and their discovery reinforces a cautionary tale from planet hunting’s prehistory

The intriguing chemistry of a rock collected by the Perseverance rover could trace to microbial activity—or not

New simulations suggest that habitable worlds could have begun forming only 200 million years after the big bang

The question of whether aliens can detect our modern civilization depends on what signs they’re looking for—and, crucially, their distance from us