Comprehensive coverage

Search for life in space

The five LIFE mission satellites are connected to form a large space telescope. Credit: ETH Zurich / LIFE initiative

Earth's Infrared Secrets: The Key to Finding Life on Distant Worlds

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The plan is to place five small satellites in space close to the Webb Space Telescope. Together these telescopes will act as a large telescope that will be used as an interferometer to receive infrared heat radiation from extrasolar planets. Finding life on Earth will give a good calibration of the spacecraft
Astronomers have found water vapor in the disk around a young star right where planets are likely to form. In this image, the new observations from the ESO partner Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) show the water vapor in shades of blue. Near the center of the disc, where the young star lives, the environment is hotter and the gas is brighter. The red rings are previous ALMA observations showing the distribution of dust around the star.Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/S. Facchini et al.

Astronomers discover a new connection between water and the formation of planets

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An amount of water at least three times greater than the water in all the Earth's oceans was discovered in the inner disk of the young Sun-like star HL Tauri, 450 light-years away from Earth, in the Taurus group
Research shows that giant gas planets in other star systems often prevent the habitability of neighboring Earth-like planets by disrupting orbits and climates. An artist's rendering of an exoplanet system full of giant planets. Credit: NASA/Dana Berry

Chaos rules the cosmos: How giant gas planets threaten life on nearby Earth-like worlds

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Jupiter, the largest planet by far in our solar system, plays an important protective role. Its enormous gravitational field deflects comets and asteroids that might otherwise hit Earth, helping to create a stable environment for life to exist. But giant planets elsewhere in the universe don't necessarily protect life in their smaller, rocky neighbors.
pulsar. Courtesy of Breakthrough Listen

Breakthrough Listen project scanned entire galaxies for signals from advanced intelligent beings

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The team identified 1,519 candidate signals that could not be attributed to radio frequency interference. After algorithmic processing, matching the signal properties with known disturbances, and extensive visual inspection, no convincing evidence of technological signatures was found.
This image, taken by NASA's Perseverance rover on Aug. 6, 2021, shows the hole drilled into Martian rock in preparation for the rover's first attempt to collect a sample. It was captured by one of the rover's cameras in what the rover's science team called "cobblestone" in the area. The crater floor is broken and rough" in Jezero Crater. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Did life exist on Mars and other planets? We may soon know through artificial intelligence

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Photograph of the Earth and the Moon by the Galileo spacecraft. Photo: NASA

Carl Sagan discovered life on Earth 30 years ago - how his experiment helps us look for alien species today

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It has been 30 years since a group of scientists led by Carl Sagan found evidence of life on Earth using data from instruments aboard NASA's Galileo space probe and only combining instruments while ignoring existing knowledge made this possible
A giant radio telescope. Illustration: depositphotos.com

An innovative technique filters out real alien signals from mundane interference

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SETI researchers have invented a new technique for detecting potential alien radio signals
Aliens are listening for signals from Earth. Illustration: depositphotos.com

Can aliens discover us? New research explains

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What could aliens pick up from the radio leak from Earth? How would Earth look to an alien civilization light years away from us?
Credit: Breakthrough Listen / Danielle Futselaar

SETI searches for technology signatures: The hunt for extraterrestrial signals at the heart of the Milky Way begins

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Akshay Suresh, a graduate student at Cornell University, is leading an unusual scientific activity - a groundbreaking mission called BLIPSS to detect periodic signals emanating from the center of the Milky Way
A planet in the life zone or golden zone - where water can exist in a liquid state. Illustration: depositphotos.com

Golden zones abound: hundreds of millions of planets in the Milky Way could possibly support life

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A new study suggests that a third of the planets orbiting dwarf stars common to the Milky Way could potentially support life. As in the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, one plate is too hot, the second is too cold and the third is just right
solar system trappist-1. Illustration: depositphotos.com

An innovative system estimates the habitability (ability to support life) of distant planets

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A computerized system classifies the atmospheres of planets outside the solar system. and determines which of them are capable of sustaining human settlement in the future
Deinococcus radiodurans (affectionately known as "the bacteria nest") is particularly suited to survive in the harsh environment of Mars. In tests, it survived astronomical amounts of radiation in a frozen, arid environment. Credit: Michael J. Daly/USU

Life on Mars: Ancient bacteria may be lurking beneath the Martian surface

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Researchers simulated the harsh ionizing radiation conditions of Mars to see how long freeze-dried bacteria and fungi could survive
A laser – like the one seen here – or a beam of radio waves deliberately aimed at Earth would be a strong sign of extraterrestrial life. G. Hüdepohl/ESO, CC BY

Signatures of alien technology could be how humanity first discovers extraterrestrial life

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New technologies could enable the discovery of technological markers from intelligent beings on distant planets
the oxygen cycle. Image: depositphotos.com

The oxygen dance: the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere rose and fell in significant fluctuations until the appearance of land plants

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The discovery also has value in a completely different field - the search for life on planets outside the solar system
In these detailed infrared images of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus, red areas indicate freshly deposited ice on the outer surface. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/LPG/CNRS/University of Nantes/Space Science Institute.

An important chemical building block for sustaining life was discovered on Saturn's moon Enceladus

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Scientists have found that the surface of Enceladus is apparently rich in phosphorus, a key component for sustaining life.
A nuclear war. Image: depositphotos.com

The Drake formula (calculating the probability of discovering intelligent aliens): the missing parameter and the fate of humanity

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The Drake formula was an attempt to calculate the probability of intelligent life on other planets. But human history shows that the formula was probably too optimistic, and that there is something missing in the calculation. This missing parameter could be critical to understanding the development of intelligent life in the galaxy, and more importantly: the development of humanity, and its chances of survival
A solar sail that the STARSHOR project wants to use to send tiny spacecraft to Proxima Centauri. STARSHOT project photography

Umuamua: Not said to be extraterrestrial, but Umuamua was probably not a nitrogen glacier

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Prof. Avi Leib claimed following the discovery of the first bone that arrived clearly outside the solar system that it was an artificial bone; In early 2021, other scientists proposed the claim that it was a nitrogen glacier that broke away from a planet in formation in another solar system. Leib and his research partners published a response paper arguing that there is not enough nitrogen in the galaxy to sustain such objects. The debate continues.
A composite image showing some of the types of fossil-like specimens formed by chemical reactions that can be found on Mars. Credit: Sean McMahon, Julie Cosmidis and Joti Rouillard

Life on Mars - or simulated fossils?

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galaxy. Illustration: depositphotos.com

The origin of fluorine is in young galaxies in the early universe

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Like all the elements that exist on Earth, fluorine also has a cosmic origin. Now, an article published long ago in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy sheds some light on this
Murchison Widefield Array Radio Telescope Photo: GOLDSMITH/MWA COLLABORATION/CURTIN UNIVERSITY

SETI: Australian researchers seek to find intelligent life on planets outside the solar system

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Dyson ball around sun. Illustration: shutterstock

Advanced civilizations will be able to use Dyson balls to harvest energy from black holes

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A theoretical study suggests a way to look for Dyson balls, even if partial, that indicate their use to produce energy from black holes by an advanced alien culture. So far no such structure has been discovered
An illustration of the appearance of Comet Omoamua based on observations by the European Southern Observatory (ESO)

Opinion/ Omri Vandel: UFOs and the Galileo project What are the chances that extraterrestrials will visit us?

According to the principle of "Occam's Razor", it is much more likely that UFOs can be explained as natural phenomena that we do not yet understand, or artificial objects of terrestrial origin, just as Umama's seemingly mysterious properties have been offered far more prosaic explanations than the alien probe speculation.
Mushroom-like structures on Mars. NASA

Mushrooms on Mars? Five unproven claims for the existence of alien life

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Jupiter and one of his moons. Photo: depositphotos.com

Molecular templates that will help identify extraterrestrial life forms will be used in the next spacecraft in the solar system

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Future space exploration missions in the solar system will focus on the search for extraterrestrial life, led by Clipper Europa, which will fly to the large fair moon in 2024, but this life may not resemble life on Earth. A new analysis method of the mass spectroscopy type may allow the discovery of extraterrestrial life of the alien type
Absorption lines of iron and nickel atoms in spectroscopy of data obtained from ESO's Very Large Telescope

Vapors of heavy metals were unexpectedly found in comet Borisov that arrived outside the solar system

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A new study conducted by a Belgian research team found that the metals iron and nickel are found in the atmospheres of comets traveling in our solar system, even those far from the sun. The findings were obtained with the help of data collected from the very large telescope which is located on the Cerro Paranal mountain, at an altitude of 2,635 meters in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile
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