Messages are beamed to a planet 20 light years from Earth in the hope they will reach intelligent alien life.

Profiles of the five candidates hoping to become leader of Japan's ruling LDP - and prime minister.

Steven Spielberg film ET: The Extra-Terrestrial was a better film than Gandhi and should have won more Oscars, its director Richard Attenborough says.

Matt Frei, presenter of BBC World News America, looks at the questions surrounding Sarah Palin as the Republicans hold their convention.

Samit Patel takes 5-41 as England win the third one-day international and seal the series, beating South Africa by 126 runs at The Oval.

A television company has joined forces with a social networking site to send a message to the nearest theoretically inhabitable planet, but can our television and radio broadcasts already be picked up in space?

Profile of Gary McKinnon, a British hacker that could be extradited to the US.

Tiny slivers of diamond may contain the earliest traces of life on Earth, a study finds.

A rare meteorite that could hold clues to the Solar System's birth has been bought by the Natural History Museum.

The Wizard of Oz and The Godfather share top billing in a best films list from by the American Film Institute.

The chief astronomer of the Roman Catholic Church says intelligent beings created by God could exist in outer space.

Even on Earth-like planets, the chances of intelligent life evolving are remote, a scientist calculates.

Singer Robbie Williams is to present a Radio 4 programme on extra-terrestrial life with broadcaster Jon Ronson.

Evidence for the largest meteorite ever to strike the British Isles has been found by a team of scientists.

British science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke will be buried in a private ceremony in Sri Lanka on Saturday.

A pair of meteorites discovered in Antarctica are in a class all of their own, a major space conference is told.

The BBC's Horizon team joins the planet hunters who believe that other Earth-like planets will be found.

Have humans wrought so much change on Earth that the rocks being formed now will show evidence of our doing millions of years from now?

An image posted by Nasa on the internet reignites the debate over whether there is life on Mars.

Horror film Alien vs Predator: Requiem goes to the top of the UK and Ireland box office chart in its opening weekend.