A Serious Search for Other Worlds, Life, and - Maybe - Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence

Searching the stars for "new life and new civilizations" is the stuff of science fiction. And, to an increasing extent, the job of professional scientists.

We're living at a point in history where humanity is rapidly discovering new worlds: some so strange that scientists are having to change old assumptions, and develop new models to explain what their instruments detect.

I would be very surprised if my children's children see something like Star Trek's warp drive. On the other hand, Alcubierre's intriguing equations suggest that we'll be able to travel faster than the speed of light: as soon as we figure out how to build machines that can warp space-time on a fairly large scale.

While physicists are exploring the horizon of their field, speculating on how a practical interstellar spaceship could be designed, and biologists are learning more about how life works, astronomers and others are putting together an increasingly extensive list of places to check out:

• "Planets: Rocky, Smaller than Earth, Three of Them"
  (January 23, 2012)
• "The 'Christmas Planet:' Kepler-22b"
  (December 12, 2011)
• "Exoplanets: Over 700 Found to Date; Latest Batch of 18 are Jupiter-Size"
  (December 5, 2011)
• "Mexico's Crystal Cave and Astrobiologist Boston"
  (June 3, 2011)
• "Gliese 581d: Rocky, Close (sort of), and Liquid Water (could be, maybe)"
  (May 18, 2011)
• "55 Cancri e - A Fairly Dense, Fairly Big, Very Intriguing, Exoplanet"
  (May 2, 2011)
• "Apex Chert: Microfossils, Microfractures, or Maybe Both"
  (April 23, 2011)
• "Kepler 11: A Tightly-Packed Planetary System"
  (February 2, 2011)
• "'Arsenic and Old Lakes' - What a Catchy Title!"
  (January 26, 2011)
• "Kepler-10b: Hot, Rocky, and the Smallest Exoplanet Yet"
  (January 11, 2011)
• "Beware Warmonger Imperialist Space Aliens!?"
  (January 11, 2011)
• "Viking Life Experiments: Another Look at Organic Stuff on Mars"
  (January 6, 2011)
• "Shifty Surface on Mars?"
  (January 5, 2011)
• "GJ 1214b: Super-Earth, With an Interesting Atmosphere"
  (December 2, 2010)
• "Arsenic and Old Science: NASA and Extraterrestrial Life"
  (December 2, 2010)
• "NASA, Extraterrestrial Life: and Titan is a Moon of Saturn, not Mars"
  (December 1, 2010)
• "Life on Mars Might be Life From Earth"
  (November 2, 2010)
• "Two Planets, Each Orbiting the Same Two Stars"
  (October 26, 2010)
• "Gliese 581g: Then Again, Maybe So"
  (October 14, 2010)
  • Or, looking at all the data
• "Gliese 581g? Maybe Not"
  (October 13, 2010)
• "Gliese 581g, Space Aliens, and the Canals of Mars"
  (October 12, 2010)
• "Gliese 581g, Alien Angst, and the Lemming"
  (October 4, 2010)
• "Gliese 581g: Life? Maybe"
  (October 2, 2010)
• "Gliese 581 Planetary System: Possible Habitable Planet"
  (October 1, 2010)
• "Nuclear Weapons, Space Aliens, Conspiracy Theories, and Getting a Grip"
  (September 24, 2010)
• "Looks Like a Cosmic Constant - Isn't"
  (September 16, 2010)
  
• "Mars, Mud Volcanoes, and the Search for Life"
  (August 20, 2010)
• "Sinister Bias in Life's Chemicals Linked to Supernovas"
  (August 17, 2010)
• "Report of a UFO Would 'Destroy One's Belief in the Church?!' "
  A Catholic Citizen in America (August 6, 2010)
• " 'More Than 100 Earth-Like Planets' Found? Well, No: Not Really"
  (July 24, 2010)
• "Planets Gone Wild, Life as We Know It, and Orbital Mechanics"
  (July 10, 2010)
• "Life Around a Red Dwarf Star? Could be"
  (July 7, 2010)
• "Another Martian Cave: Discovered by Seventh Graders"
  (June 22, 2010)
• "Earth and Moon May Be Younger Than Thought - But Not By Much"
  (June 12, 2010)
• "Life on Titan! Or, Not "
  (June 7, 2010)
• "Early Earth Didn't Freeze: Why?!"
  (June 6, 2010)
• "Thar's Oxygen in That There Moon! - Maybe"
  (May 29, 2010)
• "Upsilon Andromedae, Tilted Orbits, and Habitable Worlds"
  (May 25, 2010)
• "Mars isn't Earth, Earth isn't Mars: And Why That Matters"
  (May 12, 2010)
• "More Earth-Like Worlds Than We Thought? Another Look"
  (April 13, 2010)
• "A Star and a Planet; or Two Planets; or a Brown Dwarf and a Planet; or Something Else"
  (April 10, 2010)
• "Titan, Life Without Water, and 'Messing With Old Definitions' "
  (March 24, 2010)
• "Another Hot Jupiter: Much Farther From Its Star Than Others"
  (March 19, 2010)
• "Planets Found Circling Other Stars: 429 So Far"
  (February 15, 2010)
• "Alien Dust, HD 131488, and the Puzzle of Planets"
  (January 15, 2010)
• "Second Smallest Exoplanet Found: HD 156668b (Caution! Geeky Content!)"
  (January 10, 2010)
• "Early Returns From Galactic Census: Not As Many Planets as Expected"
  (January 9, 2010)
• "Earth Exists: New Planetary Formation Model Explains Why"
  (January 8, 2010)
• "Outer Solar System: More Planets? And What to Do With Them"
  (January 5, 2010)
• "Mars Rover Breakdown Leads to New Data"
  (December 23, 2009)
• "Probable Super-Earths Found: One Nearby"
  (December 14, 2009)
• "Spectacular UFO and the Norwegian Space Centre"
  (December 11, 2009)
• "How to Handle Mars Rocks"
  (December 5, 2009)
• "Earth May Not Be a 'Class M' Planet"
  (December 5, 2009)
• "Kids, Try This at Home: Man's Search for Aliens Got Him Fired"
  (December 2, 2009)
• "Water - On the Moon?!"
  (November 15, 2009)
• "Low on Lithium? If the Star's the Size of the Sun: It's Probably Got Planets"
  (November 11, 2009)
• "Very Young Planetary System: HR 8799"
  (November 11, 2009)
• "Space Aliens, the News, and Those Catholics"
  (November 11, 2009)
• "Space Aliens, Stars, Scientists, and This is Where I Came In"
  (November 5, 2009)
• "NASA Studying Recipe for a Planet"
  (October 29, 2009)
• "The Caves of Mars"
  (October 26, 2009)
• "Another Hot Jupiter With Organic Compounds"
  (October 21, 2009)
• "Water, Water Everywhere - Even on the Moon - Again"
  (September 28, 2009)
• "Left-Handed Life: Why are We So Sinister?"
  (September 17, 2009)
• "Bee Communication and Non-Human Intelligence; And a Dying Planet"
  (August 28, 2009)
• "Death Rays From Space - No, Really"
  (August 28, 2009)
• "Bugs in Space, Day 2: or, Stop Earthlings Now!"
  (August 26, 2009)
• "Planets, Stars: What's the Difference? Good Question"
  (August 17, 2009)
• "Life on Other Worlds: Evolution, Orbits, and the Galactic Environment"
  (August 13, 2009)
• "Planets Collided - Recently - Around a Star Called HD 172555"
  (August 10, 2009)
• "Oceans on Venus; a Very Long Time Ago; Maybe"
  (July 15, 2009)
• "Wet Mars: New Evidence"
  (July 1, 2009)
• "Bottom of the South Pacific: 1,000 Times Less Lively"
  (June 23, 2009)
• "Ancient Lake on Mars - Maybe"
  (June 20, 2009)
• "Warp Drive Might Not Be Stable: Physicists Take Another look at Alcubierre's Work"
  (June 12, 2009)
• "When Worlds Collide: You Wind Up With a Hot Planet"
  (June 11, 2009)
• "Exoplanets With Water: Blue Clue"
  (June 1, 2009)
• "VB 10: Tiny Star, Big Planet, Exciting Possibilities"
  (May 30, 2009)
• "A New Way to Search for Life on Other Worlds"
  (May 28, 2009)
• "Warp Drive: Yes, it May Be Possible; But Don't Hold Your Breath"
  (May 7, 2009)
• "Gliese 581: Lightest Known Expoplanet (Caution! Geeky Content!) "
  (April 21, 2009)
• "SETI and More: Scientific Progress Goes 'BOINC' "
  (April 18, 2009)
• "Red Dwarf Stars: Not the Undesirable Real Estate We Thought?"
  (April 9, 2009)
• "DNA - A Universal Pattern? Could Be"
  (April 8, 2009)
• "Life is Left-Handed on Earth (Caution: Geeky Content)"
  (March 23, 2009)
• "Life on Ceres? Could Be"
  (March 5, 2009)
• "Exoplanets - Wired's Top Five Most Extreme"
  (January 27, 2009)
• "Gliese 581 c: Closest Match to Earth Outside the Solar System"
  (January 15, 2009)
• "Planets Circling Other Stars Photographed"
  (November 13, 2008)
• "Re-Thinking This Galaxy's Habitable Zone"
  (September 23, 2008)
• "The Purple Hills of Earth?"
  (September 6, 2008)
• "Faster-Than-Light Travel: Maybe"
  (August 14, 2008)
• "Diamonds: Ancient Crystals, New Speculation, and the Origin of Life"
  (July 28, 2008)
• "Earth: Filmed as an Alien World"
  (July 19, 2008)
• "Mars: Water? Probably; Life? Eventually"
  (July 17, 2008)
• "Phoenix Mars Lander: Looking for Life as We Know it"
  (June 12, 2008)
• "Life on Mars as a Threat - No Kidding"
  (June 8, 2008)
• "'Thar's Ice in Them Thar Plains!' - Maybe"
  (June 1, 2008)
• "Mars, Mostly"
  (May 29, 2008)
  (Routinely updated list of posts about Mars)
• "Serious Discussions of Warp Drive"
  (May 24, 2008)
• "Vatican Says: 'Belief in Aliens Doesn't Contradict Faith' "
  (May 14, 2008)
• "The Sun as a Swinger? Cardiff U's Title is Better for Mass Extinction Article"
  (May 12, 2008)
• "Interstellar Travel: Difficult, yes; Impossible; No - NASA"
  (April 30, 2008)
• "SETI at Home: A Serious Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence"
  (March 29, 2008)
• "Methane in Extrasolar Planet's Atmosphere: A First"
  (March 21, 2008)
• "Rocky Planets May be Common as Dirt"
  (February 18, 2008)
• "A Serious Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence: A New Wrinkle in the Maxwell Equations"
  (January 31, 2008)
• "Plate Tectonics, CO2, and Life on Other Planets"
  (January 13, 2008)
• "What Would a Galactic Empire be Like? 'The Physics of Extraterrestrial Civilizations' "
  (January 2, 2008)
• "Galactic Empires and the One Percent Rule"
  (December 10, 2007)
• "Galaxies and Grocery Lists: Keeping Life in Perspective"
  (November 22, 2007)
• "And Now for Something Completely Different: New Planets: Three Hot, One Not"
  (November 8, 2007)
• "Habitable Planets, a Rand Report"
  (August 23, 2007)