Advanced ground and space-based telescopes are discovering new planets around other stars almost daily, but an environmental scientist from England believes that even if some of those planets turn out to be Earth-like, the odds are very low they'll have intelligent inhabitants.
Tantalising traces of the building blocks of life have been spotted in nearby galaxies. However, working out the identity of these carbon-containing molecules, and when they became abundant, is proving tricky, say astronomers.
Mexico's Teotihuacan, once the center of a sprawling pre-Hispanic empire, is set to become the launch pad for an attempt to communicate with extraterrestrial life. Starting on Tuesday, enthusiasts from around the world will have a chance to submit text, images, video and sounds that reflect human nature to be included in the message.
For almost 50 years, SETI researchers have concentrated on detecting radio signals. However, researchers have come to think alien civilisations could also plausibly use laser light to communicate and have begun Optical SETI programs to detect these communications.
Researchers have released a list of the top five potential habstars in our galaxy, three of which can be seen from Earth with the naked eye.
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) could be taking the wrong approach. Instead of listening for alien radio broadcasts, a better strategy may be to look for giant structures placed in orbit around nearby stars by alien civilisations.
A team of American scientists argue that recent astrophysical discoveries suggest that we should find ourselves in the midst of one or more extraterrestrial civilizations.
European researchers have begun work on a research programme to create a flotilla of orbiting mirrors that could return clear pictures of exo-planets, worlds that circle other stars.
New research indicates that it is enormously more efficient to send a long message as a physical package, a cosmic FedEx, than as radio wave or laser pulse. These findings could change the radio-only strategy employed by most SETI programs worldwide.
A new study suggests it is more energy efficient to communicate across interstellar space by sending physical material?a sort of message in a bottle?than beams of electromagnetic radiation. Currently, the bulk of the effort to identify extraterrestrial civilizations has focused on the electromagnetic spectrum.