As the latest rover arrives on Mars to assess its hospitality, astronomers are learning more about possibly habitable worlds beyond the solar system. IF MARTIANS exist, then any in the vicinity of Gale Crater on

Not that long ago, the possibility of finding planets outside our solar system was merely theoretical. In 1995, astronomers began to be able to detect Jupiter-sized “exoplanets” by their gravitational effect on the stars they

NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, launched in 2009, is one of the finest and most prolific machines ever built for seeking out worlds orbiting distant stars. And at an estimated cost of $600 million, it had better be.

Image via Wikipedia Many scientists speculate that our galaxy could be full of places like Pandora from the movie “Avatar” — Earth-like worlds in solar systems besides our own. That doesn’t mean such worlds have