LIVE SCIENCE - The trendiest planet in the universe right now is K2-18b, a potentially habitable world swirling around a small, red star in the constellation Leo. Located 124 light-years from Earth, the mysterious planet will never host human visitors — but a recent glimpse with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) hints that alien...
THE INDEPENDENT UK - It’s one of humanity’s oldest questions. Are we alone? Is there life elsewhere in our galaxy or the universe? Scientists last week made a stunning announcement that they had found the “strongest evidence yet” of life beyond our solar system. A team of astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope said...
FORBES - Preliminary budget cuts proposed by the Trump Administration would slash a huge swath out of NASA's Venus science funding. And it would spell the end of the space agency’s much anticipated $500 million DAVINCI mission, an orbiter and atmospheric probe, which had been due for launch to our sister planet in 2030. The...
CNN - A team of astronomers have detected what they call the most promising signs to date of a possible biosignature, or signs of past or present life linked to biological activity, on an exoplanet named K2-18b. But the study authors, and other experts, remain cautious and have not declared a definitive discovery of life...
NEWSWEEK - Scientists say they may have detected signs of biological activity on a planet outside our solar system, in what some describe as the "strongest evidence" so far in the ongoing search for life beyond Earth. "This is a question humanity has been asking for thousands of years, and if you're witnessing it for...
NPR - An ocean world that's teeming with microbes — and who knows what other kinds of life — is currently the best explanation for some chemical signatures that the James Webb Space Telescope has spotted in the atmosphere of a distant planet. That's according to Nikku Madhusudhan of the University of Cambridge's Institute of...
NEWSWEEK - A massive lithium discovery beneath California's Salton Sea has set off a high-stakes push for what some have implied could be America's best shot at lithium self-sufficiency. The U.S. Department of Energy confirmed in late 2023 that an estimated 18 million metric tons of lithium—often called "white gold" on account of its silvery-white...
SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE - Are we alone in the universe? While no one can say for sure, space scientists know where to start looking—exoplanets. An exoplanet is a planet beyond the cradle of Earth’s eight-membered solar system. Hundreds of billions of these extraterrestrial kingdoms swarm our galaxy, and hundreds of sextillions of others exist beyond that...
NEWS ATLAS - Finding alien life won’t be as dramatic as a flying saucer landing on the White House lawn – it’ll be NASA scientists holding a press conference to excitedly show off a chart that’s incomprehensible to most people. Now, we’re a step closer to that boring but groundbreaking day. Astronomers from the University...
SPACE.COM - Hycean worlds, which are a possible kind of exoplanet with deep oceans surrounded by a thick envelope of hydrogen, could provide the best chance for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to detect biosignatures, according to a new study. Those potential signs of life are a group of chemicals called methyl halides, which...