It may take less than 1,000 years for an advanced alien civilization to destroy its own planet with climate change, even if it relies solely on renewable energy, a new model suggests. When ...

The first unmistakable signal from another intelligence may not be a cheerful greeting. A growing group of researchers is arguing that our inaugural contact is more likely to be a distress call, the ...

When ET phones home, it could be his last call. Contrary to sci-fi movie depictions, our first contact might not be with a super advanced alien civilization at the height of power. Rather, Ivy League ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. An award-winning reporter writing about stargazing and the night sky. Astronomers have begun a first-of-its-kind search for signs ...

In 1995, a pair of scientists discovered a planet outside our solar system orbiting a solar-type star. Since that finding—which won the scientists a portion of the 2019 Nobel Prize in ...

After searching 100,000 galaxies for signs of highly advanced extraterrestrial life, a team of scientists using observations from NASA's WISE orbiting observatory has found no evidence of advanced ...

Complex, intelligent life in the galaxy appears vanishingly rare, with the nearest possible civilization perhaps 33,000 light-years distant. Yet despite the odds, scientists insist that continuing the ...

Assuming our solar system’s newest interstellar object isn’t an alien mothership sent here to menace us, humankind still hasn’t spotted any signs of extraterrestrial life, let alone intelligence — ...

A new paper posits that advanced alien civilizations may communicate through subtle flashes, like fireflies do on Earth. The thought experiment suggests that we need to avoid human biases in our ...

The first unmistakable signal from another intelligence would rank alongside fire and writing in the story of our species, yet a growing group of researchers warns that such a moment might arrive not ...