Some sci-fi aliens are wildly implausible. Others aren’t so far-fetched.

One big goal of science is to find an inhabited, Earth-like planet. But if we find an Earth-like world, will we even recognize it?

Military satellite research brought us GPS. Astronomers influenced medical imaging tech. What would be invented after we discover alien life? Professor Sara Seager explains the consequences of such a groundbreaking discovery.

The unanswered questions about sex, love, and pregnancy in space could shape the future of humanity more than we think.

No claim has even made it halfway up the Confidence of Life Detection (CoLD) scale, but 21st century science is just beginning to unfold.

13.8 billion years have passed since the Big Bang, but many stars will survive for longer than that. What's the longest-lived a star can be?

Astronomer Jill Tarter explains why SETI is really about technology, patience, and learning how to tell alien signals from our own.

Even at its faintest, Venus always outshines every other star and planet that's visible from Earth, and then some!

Many collaborations have used JWST to take deep-field images: some wider and some deeper than others. Here's how it can surpass them all.

30 years ago, we didn’t know other stars had planets orbiting them. Now, we may be on the verge of finding Earth’s Twin. Sara Seager explains.

At the upper limits of what's energetically possible, cosmic rays still persist. What happens if a human gets hit by the most energetic one?

Just like animals, galaxies often have bizarre, unusual, or even unique properties. But finding many, all at once, really does raise alarms.

Our view of the world, the Universe, and ourselves can change with just one glimpse of what's out there. It's happened many times before.

Outer space begins just over 100 kilometers up, but what we can see extends for billions of light-years. Here's what all of it looks like.

Even in an expanding Universe, we expect both redshifted and blueshifted galaxies. But nearly every one we see is redshifted. Here's why.

With unprecedented resolution, wavelength sensitivity, and light-gathering power, JWST reveals our cosmos like no other observatory ever.

US science is worth fighting for, but so are the science projects and scientists denied opportunities. Here are 4 paths all worth exploring.

Astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger spoke with Big Think about how "the colors of life" could leave detectable traces on distant planets.

In a galaxy less than 300 million years after the Big Bang, oxygen's presence abounds. That's expected; its absence would truly be profound.

In general relativity, matter and energy curve spacetime, which we experience as gravity. Why can't there be an "antigravity" force?

There will always be "wolf-criers" whose claims wither under scrutiny. But aliens are certainly out there, if science dares to find them.

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it's a JWST image or any other observatory.

Earth orbits the Sun while spinning on its tilted axis, with two annual occasions marking that maximal tilt. That's where solstices arise.

Big Think and the John Templeton Foundation gathered scientists, artists, and storytellers in Los Angeles to explore the power of awe.

With the observation of SN 2025wny, a lensed superluminous supernova, astronomy's future comes into sharp, exciting focus.

It takes a wide variety of processes in the Universe to make all the elements that populate space today. We're still discovering new ones!

Science isn't absolute. Its truths and discoveries enable us to approximate reality, but we must always remain open-minded to revisions.

Scientific truths remain true regardless of belief. These 10, despite contrary claims, remain vitally important as 2025 draws to a close.

Finding alien Earths requires seeing Earth-sized planets at Earth-like distances from Sun-like stars. A new discovery completes the roadmap.

There are so many problems, all across planet Earth, that harm and threaten humanity. Why invest in researching the Universe?