Science fiction has long been obsessed with the idea of alien life forms and how they may appear. Over the years we have seen little green men, bug-eyed monsters and predatory killers take to the silver and smaller screens to represent our idea of life from outer space. But scientific fact may hold the key to a more realistic depiction of creatures and plants which have adapted to meet the harsh challenges of alien worlds. In the hunt for extra-terrestrial life, astronomers often try to find Earth-sized planets in what is called the'habitable zone' of their host star. This means they are orbiting at the correct distance for liquid water to exist on the planet.

For the past couple of decades, NASA has been investing in spacecraft to conduct up-close examinations of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Now it'll likely be Uranus' turn. On Tuesday, a team of planetary science and astrobiology researchers released a detailed new report called a decadal survey, which lays out research priorities for their field. Like the census, a decadal survey comes out every 10 years and has important political implications. The previous assessment by planetary scientists prioritized a Mars sample return mission and a probe to Jupiter's moon Europa--the federal government agreed to fund those in the 2020s.

December 7, 2017 --Deep in the dense jungle of Mexico, pools of water that dot the thick vegetation may resemble the shallow ponds found in forests all over the world. But these seemingly boring puddles are actually deep sinkholes, or cenotes as they are known locally, and form portals to another world.

This composite, enhanced-color image of Pluto (lower right) and its largest moon, Charon (upper left), was taken by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft on July 14, 2015. Pluto and Charon are shown with approximately correct relative sizes, but their true separation is not to scale.

Let's all just come out and admit it: We're garbage people. But those of us who take part in the virtual, vacuous hole known as the internet can all agree we're part of the garbage dump. It's hard to not become garbage, in some capacity, when you contribute to this all-consuming vortex of content, opinions, pointless arguments, anger, etc. That's basically the concept behind Donut County, a hilarious upcoming physics puzzle game by Ben Esposito that delights in the eccentric. Deceptively simple, Donut County is all about the pleasures of destruction -- while simultaneously tackling serious subjects like online divisiveness and gentrification.