Project Hail Mary touches down in theaters this weekend, and we're now taking a deep dive into the movie's ending and how things play out for Ryan Gosling's Ryland Grace and his alien co-star, Rocky.

Perhaps the reason Project Hail Mary hits the spot in the spring of 2026 is that novelist Andy Weir, who wrote the 2021 novel and also the book The Martian, is fundamentally an optimist. Both stories ...

Astrobiologist and planetary scientist Mike Wong is a big fan of Rocky’s non-traditional look, because it points to the fact that evolution is often random.

The best discoveries are the ones you stumble upon when you’re not even looking for them, and that’s exactly what happens ...