Alien first-contact stories are a classic of science fiction, and they’re all the more fascinating because they can feel like predictions of a possible future. This is the book that made me fall in ...

When I look at the night sky, I don’t wonder whether alien life is somewhere out there; I think it probably is. Considering the sheer number of stars in the cosmos, and the possibly larger number of ...

The moment of first contact with extraterrestrials is a staple of science fiction. It usually involves a frantic scientist having a Eureka moment, realising in a single dramatic instant that Earth is ...

When Neil deGrasse Tyson was 9 years old, he visited the Hayden Planetarium for the first time. Growing up gazing into light pollution in the Bronx, he had no idea there were that many stars. “I was ...