Science

The skyhook solution

Space junk surrounds Earth, posing a dangerous threat. But there is a way to turn the debris into opportunity

Angelos Alfatzis

The final ethical frontier

Earthbound exploration was plagued with colonialism, exploitation and extraction. Can we hope to make space any different?

Philip Ball

Panspermia

It’s possible that frozen worlds with subterranean oceans are incubators of organic life. But then how did life get here?

Balazs Bradak

Uncertain contact

The detection of alien life won’t be obvious. It’ll be partial and inconclusive: a perfect task for the scientific method

Jaime Green

Would children born beyond Earth ever be able to return to humanity’s home planet?

5 minutes

In the search for life, might alien ocean worlds be a better bet than Earth-like planets?

5 minutes

What are you really seeing when you see magnificent images of space?

5 minutes

Cosmic vision

By showing us a new cosmos, the discoveries of the James Webb Space Telescope will ripple through our moral universe

Claire Isabel Webb

Burning ice, metal clouds, gemstone rain – tour the strangest known exoplanets

31 minutes

There’s no planet B

The scientific evidence is clear: the only celestial body that can support us is the one we evolved with. Here’s why

Arwen E Nicholson & Raphaëlle D Haywood

Thriving on Mars

Dust storms, long distances and freezing temperatures make living on Mars magnificently challenging. How will we do it?

Simon Morden

Telescopes on the Moon

Our future in space relies on settling the Moon and using it as a base to probe the deepest questions in the cosmos

Joseph Silk

An interstellar voyage explores the ‘paradox’ of twins separated by light years

6 minutes

Dark horses in the cosmos

Could primordial black holes from the beginning of time explain ‘dark matter’, the mysterious missing mass in the Universe?

Briley Lewis

From zero to 5,000 – music and visuals express 30 years of exoplanet discoveries

1 minute

Decolonising the cosmos

Instead of treating Mars and the Moon as sites of conquest and settlement, we need a radical new ethics of space exploration

Ramin Skibba

The search for alien tech

There’s a new plan to find extraterrestrial civilisations by the way they live. But if we can see them, can they see us?

Corey S Powell

How would a piano sound on Mars? Embark on an interplanetary sonic journey

20 minutes

Riches in space

Asteroids could pay for so much space exploration. We just need to mine those valuable resources – and duck a direct hit

Martin Elvis

Contact

An alien-made artefact or just interstellar debris? What ʻOumuamua says about how science works when data is scarce

Matthew Bothwell

Spacewalks above, pandemic below – how one ISS crew member experienced 2020

15 minutes

A lunar pandemic

In the 1960s, NASA went to huge expense to contain possible pathogens from the Moon. What can we learn from the attempt?

Dagomar Degroot

Do we send the goo?

The ability to stir new life into being, all across the Universe, compels us to ask why life matters in the first place

Betül Kaçar