Astronomers have narrowed down the cosmic search for life, identifying fewer than 50 rocky planets among thousands of known exoplanets that may have the right conditions to support life. Using new ...

This summer, exoplanet science—the study of planets orbiting stars beyond our sun—took a big step forward. Reports of helium gas escaping from the atmosphere of LHS 1140b propelled this exoplanet from ...

Aliens have long been a staple of science fiction. Yet the possibility of intelligent life beyond Earth is more than a matter of imagination—it is also a subject of serious scientific inquiry.

A new study from researchers in Japan suggests that a better way to search for alien life might be to look for suspiciously similar planets that are close to each other. The idea is that if life has ...

A rocky world orbiting within its star’s habitable zone may be surrounded by a helium-rich atmosphere, providing the strongest evidence yet that planets with Earth-like conditions could support life ...

The newly discovered exoplanets, designated as GJ 9827 b, c and d, are located fairly close to their host star, completing orbits within 6.2 days. ESO A nearby 'super‑Earth' just 25 light years from ...

It's a dizzyingly busy time for scientists searching for life on distant planets. To date, astronomers have cataloged more than 6,000 planets beyond our solar system and are searching the atmospheres ...