Mankind doesn’t explore space solely in search of extraterrestrials, but we keep our eyes peeled. Still, scientists know that the chances of happening across a fellow traveler in the great beyond are ...

The Milky Way Galaxy as seen from the International Space Station Last spring scientists discovered three new Earth-sized planets outside of our solar system, raising the question: could intelligent ...

The Drake Equation, written by astrophysicist Frank Drake in 1961, is a probabilistic equation to come up with an estimate of the number of intelligent, technological civilizations that should be in ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Fred L. Smith Jr. Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Andromeda Galaxy, M31, with the Lunt 80mm f/7 doublet apo ...

NASA/CXC/MIT/F. Baganoff, R. Shcherbakov et al. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence is not just the realm of crackpots and conspiracy theorists. Scientists — especially the really smart ones ...

There are several famous equations in science, particularly in physics. The language of these is, of course, mathematics. There’s Newton’s Second Law, which states that the vector sum of an external ...

In 1961, astronomer Frank Drake was looking for a way to simplify a very complex question—what is the probability of finding intelligent life in the Milky Way galaxy?—into a framework that mere humans ...

Billionaire entrepreneur and founder of SpaceX Elon Musk often weighs on robots, Mars colonization, and aliens. On Sunday, his convictions about the existence of extraterrestrial life got a boost — ...