To assess the plausibility of alien visitors, it’s necessary to understand the obstacles that an extraterrestrial vessel would need to overcome to reach Earth ...

To travel between solar systems, a spacecraft would need extremely sophisticated – if not impossible – technology.

Trappist-1, a star system 40 light-years away, holds seven Earth-sized planets—three in the habitable zone—that ignite our imagination about life beyond the solar system. But how long would it take to ...

Elon Musk has long been a visionary figure in the realm of space exploration, with his bold aspirations extending beyond Mars to the broader cosmos. His company, SpaceX, is at the forefront of ...

“There is a silence in the night sky that has bothered me for as long as I can remember.” That observation, attributed to American physicist Richard Feynman, captures a tension many people feel when ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American In an earlier blog post about Christopher ...