Exoplanets

A new origins-based system for classifying minerals reveals the huge geochemical imprint that life has left on Earth. It could help us identify other worlds with life too.

Without a good definition of life, how do we look for it on alien planets? Steven Strogatz speaks with Robert Hazen, a mineralogist and astrobiologist, and Sheref Mansy, a chemist, to learn more.

Observations of faraway planets have forced a near-total rewrite of the story of how our solar system came to be.

We might have a past faint sun to owe for life’s existence. This has consequences for the possibility of life outside Earth.

The James Webb Space Telescope has the potential to rewrite the history of the cosmos and reshape humanity’s position within it. But first, a lot of things have to work just right.

Over the past decade, researchers have completely rewritten the story of how gas giants such as Jupiter and Saturn form. They’re now debating whether the same process might hold for Earth.

After the ultra-powerful James Webb Space Telescope launches later this year, Laura Kreidberg will lead two efforts to check the weather on rocky planets orbiting other stars.

Jupiter and Saturn should be freezing cold. Instead, they’re hot. Researchers now know why.

Federica Coppari uses the world’s most powerful laser to recreate the cores of distant worlds.