Luke Skywalker would be proud. Planets like Skywalker's fictional home of Tatooine in the "Star Wars" movie series might have more potential for habi...

By: Mike Wall Published: 05/02/2013 02:08 PM EDT on SPACE.com Scientists searching for signs of life beyond our solar system should keep an open m...

It's a disturbing question, and one that I seem to get more frequently than before. "Why are you looking for evidence of extraterrestrials? What's the point?"

By: Nola Taylor Redd, Astrobiology Magazine Published: 03/11/2013 10:55 AM EDT on SPACE.com Planets orbiting binary star systems have to deal with...

By: Adam Hadhazy, Astrobiology Magazine Published: 03/07/2013 06:57 AM EST on SPACE.com Astronomers have their fingers crossed that within the hau...

By: Rod Pyle, SPACE.com Contributor Published: 02/25/2013 04:24 PM EST on SPACE.com LOS ANGELES — While Mars was likely a more hospitable plac...

MADISON, Wis. -- Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are helping search for evidence of alien life not by looking into outer space, but ...

By: Elizabeth Howell Published: 02/08/2013 08:06 PM EST on SPACE.com Intelligent alien life is likely relatively rare throughout our Milky Way gala...

I propose that big brains are rare in nature not because they are an expensive tissue to maintain, but because the consequences of complex thought are not adaptive. Being smart is a dumb survival strategy.

By: Charles Q. Choi Published: 01/03/2013 02:06 PM EST on SPACE.com Collisions among molecules in early Earth’s atmosphere may have prevented ou...

By: Charles Q. Choi Published: 11/27/2012 06:37 AM EST on SPACE.com Hairspray might one day serve as the sign that aliens have reshaped distant...

By: SPACE.com Staff Published: 11/21/2012 11:58 AM EST on SPACE.com Life is unlikely to survive on exoplanets that orbit cooling stars such as whit...

By: Mike Wall Published: 11/02/2012 02:42 PM EDT on SPACE.com NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has detected no methane in its first analyses of the M...

By: SPACE.com Staff Published: 11/02/2012 11:02 AM EDT on SPACE.com Asteroid belts similar to the one between Mars and Jupiter appear to be rare...

By: Mike Wall Published: 10/25/2012 09:33 AM EDT on SPACE.com Humanity has long dreamed of putting boots on Mars, but those boots have the potential ...

By: SPACE.com Staff Published: 09/14/2012 07:38 AM EDT on SPACE.com Life may be able to survive on a broader set of alien worlds than astronomers...

The latest Mars rover, Curiosity, will land on the Red Planet in a few days, if all goes well. Should Curiosity find evidence of past life on Mars, allow me to preempt what will certainly be a rewrite of history on the part of the world's major religions.

There is no pretense that Hollywood aliens might accurately reflect actual inhabitants of the galaxy. But is it all just free-form imagination? Can contemporary science say much about whether these cinematic sentients might be ciphers for the real thing?

By: Mike Wall Published: 05/22/2012 12:44 PM EDT on SPACE.com Astronomer Jill Tarter, the inspiration for heroine Ellie Arroway in the novel and...

By: Nola Taylor Redd Published: 04/28/2012 08:24 AM EDT on SPACE.com A new estimate of the number of habitable planets orbiting the most common ...

This is a phenomenon worthy of attention. If aliens are really hanging out in our 'hood, it's hard to imagine any other fact more worthy of study. If not, then why does such a large fraction of the populace insist on believing they're here?

By: Clara Moskowitz Published: 03/28/2012 08:04 AM EDT on SPACE.com There should be billions of habitable, rocky planets around the faint red st...

In a movie it's important to have aliens whose gestures and facial expressions can be "read" by humans. But come on! Are two eyes, four appendages and an upright posture really essential?