Search for Life

Two nearby explosive massive star deaths, or supernovas, may have triggered mass extinction events in Earth's distant past, new research suggests.

A rock on Mars that may hold clues about ancient microbial life on the Red Planet continues to puzzle scientists.

"We were surprised that water could actually form so early on — even before the birth of the first galaxies."

A distant star-killing supernova could have bombarded Earth with radiation strong enough to shift the course of evolution.

Astronomers have discovered that sulfur may be a key to helping us narrow down our search for life on other planets.

The idea that life on Earth arose through a series of improbable "hard" evolutionary steps may be misjudged, according to a new paper that says our Earth had a big say in matters.

If we're looking for life as we don't know it, the best solvent out there may be concentrated sulfuric acid — the stuff that's floating around in the clouds of Venus.

Hunting for alien civilizations isn't a matter of just waiting around for them to show up; it's the business of combing through enormous volumes of data to look for peculiar signals.