What is our probability of finding aliens and how close are we to encountering them? The answer could lie somewhere in these 2 equations, say DNews’ Trace Dominguez and Ian O’Neill.

The company SpaceX has a certain mystique: a founder who builds electric cars; rockets that self-land; a privately-funded spacecraft that became the first to supply the International Space Station. Soon, astronauts will hitch a ride on SpaceX’s Dragon spaceships as well. Wouldn’t it be a dream come true to work…

SpaceX plans to send an unmanned Dragon capsule to Mars as early as 2018, the company said Wednesday. Ultimately, SpaceX, founded and run by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, plans to fly people to and from Mars. “Planning to send Dragon to Mars as soon as 2018,” SpaceX posted on Twitter. …

Galactic walls are among the most massive structures in the known universe, but their sheer size is causing problems for theoretical models of how the cosmos forms. Even more peculiar is that astronomers think they’ve found even bigger structures out there. Discovery News space producer Ian O’Neill explains:

Kicking off his week as guest host of DNews Minute on Science Channel, President Barack Obama discussed his excitement for science and delved into NASA astronaut Scott Kelly’s epic one year mission to the International Space Station. Enjoy! Read more about Kelly’s mission and why it’s important

Despite being so far from the sun, tiny Pluto, which is smaller than Earth’s moon, has had an active geologic life from the start, one that continues to present day, research published on Thursday shows. When NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft did its historic flyby of Pluto recently, what did all…

At the end of the road in an industrial area in the Seattle suburb of Kent looms a half-block of fenced-in hangar-like buildings with no name. This is the headquarters of Blue Origin, the space company owned and bankrolled by Jeff Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon. With a few…

His muscles are sore, his joints ache, he’s fatigued and his skin is super-sensitive, the first U.S. astronaut to spend almost a year in space told reporters Friday. “I’m kind of surprised how I do feel different physically than the last time, with regards to muscle soreness and joint pain,”…

Gravity measurements taken by the orbiting Rosetta spacecraft show the body of comet 67 P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is about 75 percent dust and 25 percent ice all the way through, research published Wednesday shows. The European spacecraft put itself into orbit around 67P on Aug. 6, 2014, and three months later dispatched…