Alien Life

We reside during a remarkable time, an age when humanity is about to cross a threshold. We are about to leave the nest and meet alien life. This blog is dedicated to the science of astrobiology: understanding space, the field of our search; exploring the one example we have of life and its abode, our Earth; reaching for the stars; imagining what extraterrestrial life may be like; and encouraging science education. Please join me for daily updates on the ultimate human adventure.

Alien Life

How do we search for life in the universe?

Contacting ETI via sunlight

Layer of liquefied molten rock in Earth's mantle discovered

Habitable zones around different star types

Volcanic eruptions linked to extinctions

Could science fiction alien Balok exist?

Voyager 1 leaves the heliosphere

505 million-year-old fossil discovered

Oldest light in the universe

Current concepts of planet habitability

Determining age of the ‘Methuselah Star’

Little margin for error to supporting life as we know it

Studying an exoplanet’s atmosphere

New technique unveils 10 exoplanets

A new third-closest star system

Number of potentially habitable planets greater than previously thought

Key features in proteins needed for life to function on Mars

Evidence that ancient Mars could have supported living microbes

Higgs Boson particle discovered

Expanding the habitable zone

Life thriving in acid

How gas giants form

Best chance of picking up ETI signals

Where we’re likely to find ET

Europa’s salty ocean

How solar systems evolve

Exomoon habitability

Swinging rocky exoplanets

Atmospheric changes caused Snowball Earth

‘Contact: Culture of the Imagination’ conference