Science fiction has long speculated about the possibility of first contact with an alien species from a distant world and how we might be able to communicate with them. But what if we simply don’t ...

With the release of Disclosure Day, Steven Spielberg’s new film about aliens, a question as old as science fiction itself resurfaces: if aliens were to arrive on Earth, would they come to conquer us, ...

This not-so-little piece of equipment could change astronomy forever. And it could be about to find alien life. Maybe in a matter of days. What is this powerful new tool? How could it detect life in ...

Voyager 1 is on a journey that will outlast civilizations, outlive the Sun’s familiar neighborhood, and eventually drift into regions of space no human made object has ever reached. It is moving ...

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions comes up with an epic extraterrestrial playlist for Earth’s first contact from beyond the stars This week’s new question: ...

In 1995, a pair of scientists discovered a planet outside our solar system orbiting a solar-type star. Since that finding—which won the scientists a portion of the 2019 Nobel Prize in ...

Scientists are listening in on sperm whale conversations and studying Earth's strangest microbes to prepare humanity for first contact with extraterrestrial life. Tardigrades—a type of invertebrate ...