Initial studies of the 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid Bennu sample collected in space and brought to Earth by NASA show evidence of high-carbon content and water, which together could indicate the building blocks of life on Earth may be found in the rock.

A new investigation with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope into K2-18 b, an exoplanet 8.6 times as massive as Earth, has revealed the presence of carbon-bearing molecules including methane and carbon dioxide.

After dropping off its historic sample from asteroid Bennu, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is headed to its next target: another potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroid, called Apophis.

The delivery from the asteroid Bennu, seven years after the spacecraft launched, marks the end of the space-voyaging phase of the mission. Scientists will now study the rocks and dust to better understand the origins of life on Earth.

Surrounded by a vast ocean underneath a thick ice shell, Enceladus is a hot candidate for potentially harboring alien life. A team of researchers led by the University of Arizona concluded that a future mission could provide answers even without landing on the tiny world.

Early in its history, the red planet likely would have been habitable to methanogens, microbes that make a living in extreme habitats on Earth, according to a study that simulated the conditions on a young Mars.

An astrobiologist, an engineer and an ecologist have teamed up to mitigate the worst effects of climate change.

Several scientific papers this year touch on the search for faint signs of life in our solar system — with a June paper on Jupiter's Enceladus offering one of the most intriguing prospects.

A study published in Nature Astronomy concludes that known geochemical processes can't explain the levels of methane measured by the Cassini spacecraft on Saturn's icy moon.

Only 12 light years from Earth, Tau Ceti is the closest single star similar to the Sun and an all-time favorite in sci-fi stories. Habitable worlds orbiting Tau Ceti were destinations of fictional starships like “The Expanse”‘s Nauvoo and “Barbarella”’s vessel. “Star Trek”’s Captain Picard also frequented an exotic bar in the system. Now, thanks to a new approach to analyzing nearby planetary systems, we have a deeper understanding of the actual worlds that orbit Tau Ceti and many other nearby stars