Space, features and articles | Educational Science

Jun 14, 2023

Scientists discovered a crucial element for life gushing out of Saturn's icy ocean moon

Scientists have found another clue that the ocean beneath one of Saturn's moons may be capable of supporting life. An international team discovered signs of sodium phosphates, a salt sometimes used in deli meat here on Earth, in a plume of ice shot out from a subsurface ocean on Enceladus,...

Jun 21, 2023

Aliens might be using a nearby supernova to get our attention, new study suggests

Astronomers have their eyes on a new ultrabright explosion in space: a Type II supernova in the Pinwheel Galaxy (also known as M101). A Type II supernova is the catastrophic end to a massive star's life, and this new one, called SN 2023ixf, is the nearest bang to Earth in...

Jul 10, 2023

'Anomalous' metal spheres unlikely to be alien technology, despite Harvard scientist's claim

For nearly a decade, hundreds of tiny magnetic spheres shed by an extraterrestrial visitor lay deep beneath the Pacific Ocean. Now, the minute pellets have been dredged up by a scientific expedition — and they're fueling a media frenzy that some scientists feel is unearned. In 2014, a fireball blazed...

Jul 21, 2023

First contact with aliens could easily end in genocide, scholars warn

We’re only halfway through 2023, and it feels already like the year of alien contact. In February, President Joe Biden gave orders to shoot down three unidentified aerial phenomena – NASA’s title for UFOs. Then, the alleged leaked footage from a Navy pilot of a UFO, and then news of...

Jul 26, 2023

US government is hiding evidence of 'non-human intelligence', UFO whistleblower tells Congress

UFOs came to Washington on Wednesday. UFOs — or unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), as they're now called — have been receiving increased scrutiny from the U.S. government in recent years due to high-profile testimony from credible witnesses. In order to shine light on what some deem to be the pressing...

Aug 31, 2023

NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission almost bit the dust — then Queen guitarist Brian May stepped in

On Sept. 24, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will come hurtling back through Earth's atmosphere after a years-long journey to Bennu, a potentially hazardous asteroid with a 1 in 2700 chance of smashing cataclysmically into Earth, the highest odds of any identified space object. The goal of the mission? To see whether...

Sep 14, 2023

No aliens in NASA's debut UFO report — but big questions remain

NASA's UFO study team released its long-awaited first report today, and while its experts found no signs of extraterrestrial origins for reported sightings, the space agency is appointing a new chief to study the phenomenon. NASA commissioned the independent panel of experts in 2022 in order to inform NASA and...

Sep 25, 2023

Scientists created AI that could detect alien life — and they're not entirely sure how it works

Scientists have created an artificial intelligence (AI) program that can detect alien life in physical samples — though they aren't sure exactly how it works. The new machine-learning algorithm — trained using living cells, fossils, meteorites and lab-made chemicals — can distinguish between samples of biological and nonbiological origin 90%...

Sep 28, 2023

Alien life may evolve from radically different elements than human life did

Self-sustaining chemical reactions that could support biology radically different from life as we know it might exist on many different planets using a variety of elements beyond the carbon upon which Earth's life is based, a new study finds. On Earth, life is based on organic compounds. These molecules are...

Oct 28, 2023

What's the best evidence we've found for alien life?

We've all wondered whether we're alone in the universe, and with potentially habitable planets, strange space signals and UFO hearings hitting the headlines, it's starting to feel like we're on the cusp of a major extraterrestrial discovery. But what's the best scientific evidence we've found for the existence of alien...

Dec 7, 2023

Scientists are searching for alien signals at frequencies never studied before

Is there life beyond Earth? The question has turned out to be one of the hardest to answer in science. Despite the seemingly boundless expanse of the universe, which implies there's potential for abundant life, the vast distances between stars render the search akin to locating a needle in a...

Dec 16, 2023

World's 1st 'conversation' between humans and whales could help us talk to aliens someday, scientists claim

Humpback whale conversations provide valuable insight on how humans may one day communicate with life beyond Earth, new research claims. Researchers from the SETI Institute, University of California Davis and the Alaska Whale Foundation recently conversed with a humpback whale named Twain using an underwater speaker and recorded a humpback...

Mar 12, 2024

Seismic reading linked to 'alien technology' by Harvard professor likely came from a passing truck, study claims

Another study has cast doubt on a Harvard professor's claim that he discovered tiny metallic balls made by aliens at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. In 2023, Avi Loeb, director of Harvard University's computational astrophysics center, claimed he had found several metallic spherules left behind by a meteor that...

Feb 12, 2024

Watch the 1st X-class solar flare of 2024 erupt from the sun in explosive fashion

The sun unleashed a powerful X-class solar flare on Friday (Feb. 9), peaking at 8:10 a.m. (1310 GMT) and triggering shortwave radio blackouts across South America, Africa and the Southern Atlantic. The solar flare erupted from sunspot AR3576 — the same sunspot that put on a fiery show on Feb....

Feb 21, 2024

One of the best smart telescopes now comes with a free solar filter worth $249 — perfect for eclipse watchers

Telescopes are great for exploring space, but no way should you be pointing one of them at the sun. That is unless you have a solar filter, and as luck would have it, Unistellar are offering a solar filter worth a whopping $249 for free when you buy their smart...