Small, rocky planets can coalesce around a wide variety of stars, suggesting that Earth-like alien worlds may have formed early and often throughout our Milky Way galaxy's history, a new study reveals ...

A NASA astrophysicist has recently proposed a theory that could potentially resolve the long-standing Fermi Paradox. The theory suggests that alien civilizations may be scattered sparsely throughout ...

The Milky Way as a laboratory for civilizations Any attempt to chart alien societies has to start with the structure of The Milky Way itself, a disk roughly 100,000 light years across with hundreds of ...

Our search for technosignatures—clear signs of advanced civilizations beyond Earth—takes many forms. Many are driven by the famous Drake equation, which attempts to estimate how many technological ...

No matter the time or vantage point, from a pre-Neolithic cave to a post-lockdown London high-rise, the predictability of the night sky has always been humanity's symbol of permanence and reassuring ...

On May 22, 2026, the Pentagon released a second batch of previously classified photos and videos showing what appear to be unexplained flying objects. These file dumps were the culmination of a ...

If advanced aliens lived on a planet within a few hundred to a thousand light years away from Earth, then vast numbers of their signals must already have crossed Earth without being noticed, a new ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. An award-winning reporter writing about stargazing and the night sky. When will the Milky Way collide with the Andromeda Galaxy?

Get ready, stargazers: The Milky Way could be coming to a sky near you. Our galaxy is positively teeming with billions of stars that become bright and vibrant in the cosmos at certain times of the ...

The Milky Way galaxy's bright center is most visible in the United States from March to September. No special equipment is needed to see the galaxy, but dark skies away from city lights are essential.

"Milky Way season," when our galaxy's bright center is most visible, is now beginning in the Northern Hemisphere. The best time to see the Milky Way in the US is generally from March to September.