Brian Lacki has released a set of three prepublication studies attempting to rationalize and measure the odds of a ...

Previous research suggests that brown dwarfs should contain phosphine—which forms when phosphorus combines with ...

There has been a lot of talk among people who study and follow such things about whether or not interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is an alien spacecraft. Most ...

With the recent discovery of traces of what may or may not be or have been life on Mars, eyes are turning to another world in ...

The idea that life on Earth arose through a series of improbable "hard" evolutionary steps may be misjudged, according to a ...

Complex, intelligent life in the galaxy appears vanishingly rare, with the nearest possible civilization perhaps 33,000 light ...

For decades, scientists have grappled with a profound question known as the Fermi Paradox: if the galaxy is teeming with the potential for extraterrestrial life, why is the cosmos so quiet? A new ...

We’re celebrating 180 years of Scientific American. Explore our legacy of discovery and look ahead to the future. In the late 1800s Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli pointed a telescope at Mars ...

A new study used mathematical formulas and demonstrated that it’s highly unlikely life began on Earth. Instead, the ...

New research suggests that technological civilizations in the Milky Way are extremely rare, with the closest potentially ...

A new study presented at the 2025 EPSC/DPS Joint Meeting proposes that the rarity of specific geological and atmospheric conditions necessary for technologically advanced life significantly limits the ...