Astronomers have spent the past decade cataloguing thousands of planets beyond the solar system, many of them falling into a ...

The search for life beyond Earth is a key driver of modern astronomy and planetary science. The U.S. is building multiple major telescopes and planetary probes to advance this search. However, the ...

Astonishingly, we can identify molecules present in the atmospheres of exoplanets.

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Some exoplanets, like the one shown in this illustration, may have atmospheres that could make them potentially suitable for life.

We live in a very exciting time: answers to some of the oldest questions humanity has conceived are within our grasp. One of these is whether Earth is the only place that harbors life. In the last 30 ...

Lichen from the Mojave Desert has stunned scientists by surviving months of lethal UVC radiation, suggesting life could exist on distant planets orbiting volatile stars. The secret? A microscopic ...

For years, astronomers have celebrated every hint of an ocean on a distant world as a potential foothold for life. Now a new wave of modeling argues that most of those supposed seas are illusions, and ...

The University of Arizona will serve as mission control for a newly launched space telescope designed to study distant exoplanets and their host stars.

The search for alien life often sparks the imagination with images of extraterrestrial beings and strange worlds. However, a new theory is shifting the focus—what if life elsewhere in the universe ...

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) Morgan Underwood, Rice University (THE CONVERSATION) When astronomers search for ...