From canals to curiosity the search for life on mars

Mars once had vast oceans on its surface. Then its magnetic field weakened, its atmosphere thinned, and its water vanished. But the numbers don’t add up. For the Red Planet to have transformed from a

What would you say if intelligent aliens came calling?

Ten years ago, Pluto emerged from the gloom at the Solar System’s ragged edge – and a new world came in from the cold. Five billion kilometres (3 billion miles) from Earth, on 14 July 2015, NASA’s pia

Where did life on Earth begin? That sounds like a relatively straightforward question. Surely life on Earth began… well, on Earth, right? We know this planet had the right conditions for life to arise

With high summer beckoning, John Lewis-Stempel reflects on the incomparable richness of pond life and the rewards of pausing to peer into the murky depths on a warm June afternoon

What makes your team’s discovery on Mars so exciting? We found large organic molecules composed of 10, 11 and 12 atoms of carbon. These long, chain-shaped molecules – called alkanes – are very fragile