We’ve now discovered thousands of stars with planets. Is ours really unique?
Wonder
Moms who raise a scientist are a wonder.
Passing the Bar
If habitable planets are common, why aren’t alien civilizations? This “Fermi paradox” might be solved by an idea known as the great filter.
Is There Anybody Out There?
An infrared survey of 100,000 galaxies finds no evidence of so-called Kardashev-type alien civilizations.
It Came From Outer Space
The Murchison meteorite contains the building blocks of life, and they formed in outer space.
How ‘Bout That
Today my grandmother would have been 99.
Water, Water, Every Where
New evidence from Cassini points to the existence of warm water on Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus.
Out of the Calm
We borrow our existence from the cosmos. We flow on until, like spirals of water, we fade back into the calm.
Pale Blue Dot
The image above is a radio image of Voyager 1. It was taken from the Very Long Baseline Array, which is a collection of 10 radio telescopes scattered from Hawaii to the Virgin Islands. It captures the faint radio signal of the distant probe. That pale blue dot is the most distant object made by humans.