Despite the vast number of planets in the Universe, Earth’s specific evolutionary history guarantees that its life forms — including humans — are utterly unique.
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As Uranus approaches its solstice, its polar caps, rings, and moons come into their best focus ever under JWST’s watchful eye. See it now!
Within the next few decades, we may well have hard evidence for the existence of alien life on worlds light-years distant from Earth.
The Schumann resonances are the background hum of the entire planet. But they don’t affect humans in any way.
Mercury, Venus, and Mars are all uni-plate planets, and may always have been. Here’s what’s known about why Earth, uniquely, has plate tectonics.
Whenever someone waxes poetic about terraforming alien worlds, it’s worth taking a moment to consider the ethical implications of the proposal.
It’s like radar, but with light. Distributed acoustic sensing — DAS — picks up tremors from volcanoes, quaking ice and deep-sea faults, as well as traffic rumbles and whale calls.
Looking at our planet with post-Copernican eyes has the power to change how we relate to it and each other.
Out of the four rocky planets in our Solar System, only Earth presently has plate tectonics. But billions of years ago, Venus had them, too.
The giant impact theory suggests our Moon was formed from proto-Earth getting a Mars-sized strike. An exoplanet system shows it’s plausible.
A true scientific view of if, where, and when extraterrestrial life exists is within our grasp thanks to biosignatures and technosignatures.
The space telescope’s findings challenge the notion of a galaxy brimming with life.
Back in 1990, we hadn’t discovered a single planet outside of our Solar System. Here are 10 facts that would’ve surprised every astronomer.
With such a vast Universe and raw ingredients that seem to be everywhere, could it really be possible that humanity is truly alone?
Valles Marineris is the Solar System’s grandest canyon, many times longer, wider, and deeper than the Grand Canyon. What scarred Mars so?
Exoplanet LP 791-18d is likely to have an atmosphere and liquid water.
Chemical changes inside Mars’ core caused it to lose its magnetic field. This, in turn, caused it to lose its oceans. But how?
Fire was crucial to the evolution of human technology. That’s why alien species stuck in the “oxygen bottleneck” may be forever primitive.
According to Peter Ward’s “Medea hypothesis,” photosynthesizing organisms regularly doom most life on Earth by over-consuming carbon dioxide.
Known as the Great Oxygenation Event, Earth froze over as oxygen accumulated in our atmosphere, nearly driving all life extinct.
Life in the supremely vast cosmos is incredibly rare. We need a new vision for our living planet and for ourselves.
A new study of Martian dust gives insights into the ancient Martian climate. The findings hint at a wetter world.
The cycles of life all rely on the dynamism of the Earth’s crust.
In 2023, data from the James Webb Space Telescope soured hopes that TRAPPIST-1 c had an atmosphere. That disappointment might have been premature.
This oddball system of three stars might be our best chance at finding nearby life in the Universe.
NASA is creating a planet habitability index, and Earth may not be at the top. With our current data, ranking habitability is guesswork.
Humanity has two giant collisions to thank for its existence, explains biologist Sean B. Carroll.
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Like Mars today, Venus used to be a sci-fi superstar. Recent discoveries could re-ignite our interest in Earth’s “evil twin.”