With the publication of “Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe,” Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee explained why microbial life may be ubiquitous in the universe, but ...

Earth, around our Sun, has the right conditions for life, and both life and intelligence did arise here. But if we went back to an 'early Earth' environment, would these outcomes be common or rare ...

Abundance of Earth-like Exoplanets The universe has no shortage of similarities to Earth when it comes to celestial ...

Special – but not unique. In 2000, Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee argued in Rare Earth that intelligent life on Earth relied on so many unlikely accidents that we are probably alone in the universe.

Do we live on a rare earth, so exceptional that it is pretty much alone in hosting a rich diversity of life, with almost all other planets being home to simple microbes at best? Or are we in a ...

The Cosmic Zoo: Why Animal-Like Life Should Be Common In the Universe Once biology starts on a planet, there’s a good chance complex organisms would follow.

Cosmic Zoo vs. Rare Earth A new book argues that complex life is common in the universe.

To know whether life exists beyond Earth, we must come to terms with our own significance in the universe. Are we uniquely special or merely mediocre?

Even if life existed on every planet that could support it, living matter in the universe would amount to only a few grains of sand in the Gobi Desert.

The "Rare Earth" hypothesis puts forth the notion that life like our own may be a very rare (if not singular), occurrence throughout all of time and space. Why Life *Might* Be Rare: ...

New research indicates the number of planets capable of hosting complex life could be much smaller than we thought.