This artist’s concept gives an impression of how common planets are around the stars in the Milky Way. A six-year search that surveyed millions of stars using the microlensing technique concluded that planets around stars are the rule rather than the exception.Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser Alien planets …
Why hasn't Earth received any messages from extraterrestrials yet? Perhaps because we're already unwitting inhabitants in a so-called galactic zoo. This was one of the scenarios a group of international researchers explored on March 18 at a meeting organized by the nonprofit organization Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI). The …
A new paper describes how laser beams could disrupt measurements of Earth's orbit around the sun, potentially deceiving inquisitive aliens. Here, a 22W laser used for adaptive optics shines from the Very Large Telescope in Chile.(Image: © ESO/G. Hüdepohl) A simple laser beam could disrupt aliens' …
Astronomers have developed some clever methods of detecting tiny planets orbiting distant stars.(Image: © By Karl Tate, Infographics Artist) Detecting tiny planets amid a star's glare, from many light-years across the galaxy, is very challenging. Direct imaging, or resolving planets as pixels in a photograph, is …
One of the most important mysteries of antiquity is the Dogon tribe, a people that has maintained for centuries a complex knowledge about the universe and especially the existence of the star Sirius, from where a highly developed civilization would come who contacted them in …
Many people say that kids are the future and it’s hard to disagree when they show how truly creative, innovative and dedicated they are. New Jersey’s North Bergen High School drama club students recently proved that when they performed their own take on the 1979 …
Extraterrestrials may be biding their time, waiting for a more ideal universe. Missing, Or Sleeping? During a lunchtime conversation in 1950, Enrico Fermi, the “architect of the nuclear age” who built the world’s first nuclear reactor, posed a question that has resulted in decades of research and hundreds …
The question “where is everyone?” is the crux of the Fermi Paradox. If life on Earth is not particularly special and unique, where are all the alien civilizations? Many explanations have been proposed to explain why we seem to be alone in the vast universe. None …
1952 was the year America caught flying-saucer fever. So when a rash of strange sightings was reported in the skies over Washington D.C. that summer, the press and the public demanded answers. Were these unexplained radar blips, crafts that in some cases outran jets, part of a …
I know, reading the title would instantly have a ‘non believer’ click the X button on the top right hand corner of the screen, and that’s fine, but the truth remains. And that truth is the fact that “there is very compelling evidence that we …
Would aliens want to help us or hurt us? In a paper by researchers Seth D. Bauma and Jacob D. Haqq-Misra of Pennsylvania State University and NASA's Shawn D. Domagal-Goldman, the prospect of extraterrestrial contact is analyzed from every conceivable angle. [Credit: Seth D. Baum, Jacob D. Haqq-Misra, & …
Since Fermi's first conversation with fellow scientists in 1950, the Fermi Paradox has haunted astrobiologists and astronomers with its giant, looming question mark: Where is everybody? Dozens of hypotheses have been proposed to answer that seemingly simple question, ranging from pessimistic (all the aliens are dead) to practical (they're all …
Let the record show that Richard Dean Anderson is the one true prophet and Stargate SG-1 is the new good book. There have been many tales told over why America and its gang of bros invaded Iraq. Weapons of mass destruction, oil, to show the world how …
