JWST Detects Quartz Crystals in an Exoplanet’s Atmosphere
Astronomers have found high-altitude clouds formed from quartz crystals on the gas-giant world WASP-17b
Exoplanets
Stunning Images Reveal Rogue Planets of the Orion Nebula
The James Webb Space Telescope’s infrared gaze sheds new light on the Orion nebula, an icon of the night sky
How Would We Know There’s Life on Earth? This Bold Experiment Found Out
Thirty years ago, astronomer Carl Sagan convinced NASA to turn a passing space probe’s instruments on Earth to look for life — with results that still reverberate today
The Sky Is Full of Stars—and Exoplanets, Too
Of the thousands of stars visible to the eye, only a few hundred are known to have planets. But that number may be far higher in reality
Can Lucky Planets Get a Second Chance at Life?
Worlds around red giant stars—and others that don’t orbit any star at all—hint at an unexpected diversity of possibilities for planets and life in the universe
Nearby Worlds May Tell Us How Life Might Look in Our Galaxy
TRAPPIST-1 could make or break the extended push to make red dwarfs an astrobiological priority
Earthshine Lights up the ‘Dark Side’ of the Moon
This week—and any time there’s a new crescent moon—the lunar night is a little less dark, thanks to the bright reflected light of Earth
We Need to Widen the ‘Habitable Zones’ Seen around Alien Stars
When looking for life in space, we should broaden our horizons
Have We Found Fragments of a Meteor from Another Star?
Tiny spheres of once-molten metal magnetically dredged from the seafloor could be pieces from IM1, a potential interstellar meteor that struck Earth in 2014
To Find Life in the Universe, Find the Computation
The discovery that life on Earth looks a lot like information propagating itself offers new clues, and new directions, to the hunt for life elsewhere
JWST’s Hunt for Habitable Exoplanets Finds Disappointment, Again
Observations from the James Webb Space Telescope suggest that TRAPPIST-1 c, the second world in a seven-planet system, lacks an atmosphere
Bad Data, Not Aliens, May Be behind UFO Surge, NASA Team Says
More and better data are required to solve the mystery of strange apparitions in the air, the sea and space, according to NASA’s Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study team