Nautilus

8 min read

Chicago-bound motorists passing mile marker 121 on Interstate-88 through Aurora, Illinois, on Sept. 30, 2011, at 3:00 p.m. likely noticed nothing that seemed particularly remarkable. To their right was a scene of humdrum office parks, and to the left

Nautilus

5 min read

You might imagine that in the midst of a global pandemic and all of its social and economic fallout that our minds would be laser-focused on immediate, Earthly woes. But apparently not entirely. A case in point is the recent virus-like spread of news

Popular Science

4 min read

Disembodied rumors about an alien discovery are circulating around the internet Amazon In a new video, the hacker group known as Anonymous claims that NASA has discovered alien life. But before you freak out, let’s talk. For the record, most of us he

All About Space

1 min read

“My best guess for when we’ll detect extraterrestrial life – if, in fact, we make contact in my lifetime – is by 2030, a decade from now.” “I’ve bet everyone a cup of coffee that we’ll find a signal within two decades. If not, I’ll have the opportun

Popular Science

3 min read

Astronomers generally agree that the immense size, and age, of the universe almost certainly means there are other intelligent beings out there. So why haven't we found them?

SFX

1 min read

RELEASED OUT NOW! 275 pages | Hardback/ebook Editor Desirina Boskovich Publisher Abrams Image As is often the case with such things, the subtitle to this eccentric collection – The Secret History Of Science Fiction And Fantasy – is arguably a little

All About Space

1 min read

There will be discussions on how humanity should be represented – if we even respond. Some religions may deny the discovery. Others may embrace it within their beliefs. Discovering that we are not the only life in the universe would likely have a lar

The Atlantic

6 min read

Ever since the Renaissance, the sciences have dealt human beings a steady stream of humiliations. The Copernican revolution dismantled the idea that humanity stood at the center of the universe. A cascade of discoveries from the late-18th to the earl

The Atlantic

7 min read

Scientists recently modeled a range of interactions between energy-intensive civilizations and their planets. The results were sobering.

Nautilus

5 min read

You might imagine that in the midst of a global pandemic and all of its social and economic fallout that our minds would be laser-focused on immediate, Earthly woes. But apparently not entirely. A case in point is the recent virus-like spread of news

AQ: Australian Quarterly

12 min read

ARTICLE BY: Isabelle Gua ran “How inappropriate to call this pla net "Earth," when it is clearly "Ocean.” – Arthur C. Clarke It was coming at the Covehithe cliff. Under its stains and excrescences were more regular markings, stencilled warnings. Pain

The Atlantic

4 min read

On the night before Halloween in 1938, a strange story crackled over radios across the United States. An announcer interrupted the evening’s regular programming for a “special bulletin,” which went on to describe an alien invasion in a field in New J

SFX

1 min read

UK/US: Netflix, streaming now Producer Nigel Paterson Narrator Sophie Okonedo In a few centuries’ time, a documentary series like this will probably be hosted by a clone of David Attenborough, jetting around the galaxy studying extraterrestrial life.

The Atlantic

3 min read

To find signs of plant life on other worlds, it helps to understand the history of our own.

Nautilus

5 min read

This September, a team of astronomers noticed that the light from a distant star is flickering in a highly irregular pattern.1 They considered the possibility that comets, debris, and impacts could account for their observations, but each of these ex

How It Works

1 min read

An exoplanet that has a thick atmosphere could drive its inhabitants to evolve to fly around, exerting as little force as possible as they glide through the planet’s sky. If aliens exhibit similar oxygen-transport systems in their bodies to Earth’s l

Chat It's Fate

1 min read

Nearly half of all Americans believe in intelligent life on other planets. According to a 2018 study into paranormal beliefs by Chapman University, more than two out of five Americans (41.4%) believe that aliens visited Earth in our ancient past and

Writing Magazine

1 min read

US small press Sliced Up is looking for short stories involving menopause for a horror fiction anthology, Bodies Full of Burning: An Anthology of Menopause-Themed Horror. Stories, 1,000-4,000 words, must include menopause as the main plot point. Subm

Maximum PC

2 min read

FIRST-CONTACT situations tend to go badly in sci-fi. Aliens are generally resourcehungry asset strippers, perfect killing machines, or under threat from the Borg. With intellects that are vast, cool, and unsympathetic, they draw their plans against u

BBC Science Focus Magazine

1 min read

It turns out our Solar System is a pretty hospitable place. That’s been one of the major narratives of the last decade as probes and rovers have stretched out across space and got to know the planets and moons that surround us. Clearly Earth is somet

New Zealand Listener

1 min read

Light is fast, but it still takes time to travel across the universe. So when you look at the stars in the night sky, you’re seeing light that left those objects a long time ago. This means you’re always looking into the past. If an alien living a hu

How It Works

2 min read

Alien life is something that everyone ponders at some point. It has allowed science fiction writers and film makers a creative licence, with actors and actresses dressed up in some very questionable attire. However, the truth is that there are so man

Literary Hub

5 min read

In his poem “Harlem,” Langston Hughes asked, “What happens to a dream deferred?” It was a prophetic inquiry, one that questioned a society in which Black people continually faced racial injustice, even though the nation’s ideals were supposedly predi

Anorak Magazine

1 min read

A visiting alien from Planet Mercury walked into the town’s square yesterday and gathered a crowd with his cries. “Aliens exist” he shouted “and I am the living proof of it.” He invited people in the crowd to prod him to judge for themselves but the

The Atlantic

4 min read

Hope Hicks’s surprise announcement, what kids learn from active-shooter drills, Ta-Nehisi Coates’s next project, and more

BBC Science Focus Magazine

1 min read

All life on Earth needs three things: DNA and RNA for storing genetic information, proteins for making structural components of a cell and running biochemical reactions, and fatty lipid molecules that make up an outer membrane of a cell. We therefore

How It Works

4 min read

■ Author: Keith Cooper ■ Publisher: Bloomsbury Sigma ■ Price: £18.99 / $28 ■ Release: Out now The question of whether extraterrestrial life exists in our universe is perhaps one of the biggest and most challenging topics of all. With no definitive a

Popular Science

3 min read

Any extraterrestrial critters in our solar system, given the lack of obvious greenery and movement out there, are likely to be simple microbes. Perhaps they burrow deep under the Martian soil to hide from damaging ultraviolet rays. Or perhaps some li

Futurity

3 min read

New research asks a big question: Is there such a thing as a sustainable civilization, perhaps one that lies far beyond our own galaxy? Or are all civilizations doomed to destroy themselves? “If we’re not the universe’s first civilization, that means

Literary Hub

12 min read

As an astrobiologist I spend a lot of my time working in the lab with samples from some of the most extreme places on Earth, investigating how life might survive on other worlds in our solar system and what signs of their existence we could detect. I