Astrobiology
Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” II: Questioning the Hart-Tipler Conjecture
Welcome back to our Fermi Paradox series, where we take a look at possible resolutions to Enrico Fermi's famous question,…
Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” I: A Lunchtime Conversation- Enrico Fermi and Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Welcome back to our Fermi Paradox series, where we take a look at possible resolutions to Enrico Fermi's famous question,…
Who Speaks for Earth? The Controversy over Interstellar Messaging
Should we beam messages into deep space, announcing our presence to any extraterrestrial civilizations that might be out there? Or,…
Defining Life II: Metabolism and Evolution as clues to Extraterrestrial Life
In the movie "Avatar", we could tell at a glance that the alien moon Pandora was teeming with alien life.…
Defining Life I: What are Astrobiologists Looking For?
How can astrobiologists find extraterrestrial life? In everyday life, we usually don’t have any problem telling that a dog or…
Communicating Across the Cosmos 4: The Quest for a Rosetta Stone
On television and in the movies, it’s so easy. Aliens almost always speak English (at least in America they do).…
Communicating Across the Cosmos, Part 1: Shouting into the Darkness
Over the last 20 years, astronomers have discovered several thousand planets orbiting other stars. We now know that potentially habitable…
The Origins of Life Could Indeed Be “Interstellar”
Some of science's most pressing questions involve the origins of life on Earth. How did the first lifeforms emerge from…
Unusual Distributions of Organics Found in Titan’s Atmosphere
A new mystery of Titan has been uncovered by astronomers using their latest asset in the high altitude desert of…
Moons of Confusion: Why Finding Extraterrestrial Life may be Harder than we Thought
Astronomers and planetary scientists thought they knew how to find evidence of life on planets beyond our Solar System. But,…