Extraterrestrial Life

An artist, a programmer and a scientist have created a simulation of extraterrestrial communication to test Earthlings’ ability to understand it

All who testified before a congressional subcommittee claimed that UFOs pose a threat to national security. So why haven’t the reports been made public?

For most of us, aliens are a source of mystery and fun, which keeps them forever in vogue

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

Human intelligence may be just a brief phase before machines take over. That may answer where the aliens are hiding

Cell-phone towers leak radio waves into space, but they’ll be tough for aliens to detect

Hints of life on distant worlds will come from signals pioneered by NASA’s jumbo space telescope

For centuries, scientific discoveries have suggested humanity occupies no privileged place in the universe. Now, however, studies of worlds beyond our solar system could place meaningful new limits on our existential mediocrity

The hunt for Martian life focuses on detecting organic molecules that could indicate its past existence. Are our instruments up to the task?

Do efforts to create life—by cooking up imitations in computers, robots and molecules—point toward a universal definition of biology?

Collisions between moons and planets may be a regular danger for possible extraterrestrial life

Science might be redefining what “life out there” really means.