NASA’s Pandora is on a mission to help answer the question: Is there other life out there?

OTTAWA — During a ceremony this week to unveil his official portrait, former prime minister Stephen Harper made a point of mentioning the tie he’s wearing in the painting. The colours, the former prime minister pointed out during the ceremony in downtown Ottawa, represent the three key elements of Canada’s Conservatives: dark blue for the “Tories of old,” green for the “western, populist tradition” and Preston Manning’s Reform Party, and sky blue for the conservative tradition of Quebec nationalists and francophones across the country. In reality, however, according to political...