We’re celebrating 180 years of Scientific American. Explore our legacy of discovery and look ahead to the future. In the late ...

Powerful new telescopes will help astronomers determine whether we are alone in the universe.

Contact with extraterrestrial life would be an epochal event. Even the discovery of a simple alien organism would be transformative, giving us unprecedented insight into how life forms on Earth ...

The origin of life on Earth has been mulled over by scientists for centuries. We now know that life’s building blocks are RNA, amino acids, and cells. But if life originated from the primordial ooze ...

A new cosmic map reveals the "Big Ring,” a ring of colossal galaxies that challenges our current understanding of the universe.

Goldilocks worlds. The Goldilocks criteria ; The search for another earth ; Alien vistas ; Beyond the Goldilocks zone ; The moon factory ; The search for life Summary "The Planet Factory tells the ...

Why the Search for Life in Space Starts With Ancient Earth Need to estimate, from trillions of miles away, how likely another world is to host life? There’s a flowchart for that.

The first discovery of an Earth-like planet beyond the solar system is just around the corner, astronomers say, and the find will mark a turning point for our conception of our place in the cosmos.

Destructive weather forces are symptoms of Earth's creative energy. In our quest to discover if we are alone in the universe, we shouldn't just look for worlds, we should look for weather; find ...