
Proxima b: Earth-like planet spotted just 4 light years away
24 August 2016
A planet just 30 per cent more massive than Earth orbits in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri, which is just 4.25 light years away. How Earth-like is it really?

24 August 2016
A planet just 30 per cent more massive than Earth orbits in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri, which is just 4.25 light years away. How Earth-like is it really?

9 December 2015
Shiny spots and minerals on Ceres suggest it may have been born in the outer solar system, and that our classification of asteroids and planets is wrong

18 November 2015
Ice volcanoes and other geological oddities on the dwarf planet hint at an outer solar system full of frozen yet active worlds

29 July 2015
A band of strangely tight-knit icy objects in the Kuiper belt has defied explanation. Now a simulation rewinding the solar system to its babyhood has an answer

25 March 2015
NASA hopes Dawn mission can answer the big question: could life lurk in icy volcanoes on Ceres, the asteroid belt's biggest resident?

17 March 2015
Speedier ways to search for moons outside the solar system are good news for alien hunters: these would be some of the best places to look for life

28 January 2015
The oldest rocky planets yet are 11.2 billion years old, just a little younger than the universe – meaning the galaxy made an early start on planet building

7 January 2015
You don't need a multi-million-dollar budget to find alien worlds – off-the-shelf scopes rigged together can spot our cosmic neighbours too

18 November 2014
The European Space Agency has announced that Philae has detected organic molecules on comet 67P – and there are many more scientific discoveries to come

22 May 2013
The planet-spotting Kepler telescope seems doomed, but its discoveries along with a new version of the famous Drake equation will sharpen the hunt for ET