Want to find life? Compare a planet to its neighbors

With thousands of known exoplanets and tens of thousands likely to be discovered in the coming decades, it could be only a matter of time before we discover a planet with life. The trick is proving it. So far the focus has ...

Do red dwarfs or sunlike stars have more Earth-sized worlds?

Earth is our only example of a habitable planet, so it makes sense to search for Earth-size worlds when we're hunting for potentially-habitable exoplanets. When astronomers found seven of them orbiting a red dwarf star in ...

Will solar panels work at Proxima Centauri?

Solar panel technology has advanced significantly in recent years, to the point where solar energy is the fastest-growing renewable power source. The solar panels we have today are a by-product of those used in space.

An ambitious new technology might be needed to see other Earths

The race is on to discover truly habitable Earth-like worlds. While we are starting to observe the atmospheres of large potentially habitable planets such as Hycean worlds with the telescopes we currently have, the most significant ...

Revisiting the space weather environment of Proxima Centauri b

The nearest known exoplanet to Earth, the planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, experiences some pretty nasty space weather from its parent star. But previous work on the space weather of Proxima relied on a lot of assumptions. ...

Life can thrive around even the smallest stars, study claims

Photosynthesis is probably the most important chemical reaction for life on Earth. It is the process plants use to transform sunlight into energy it can use. Through it, plants can produce carbohydrates they can use (and ...

page 18 from 24