According to NASA scientists, discovering alien will most likely happen in less than a decade.
Ellen Stofan, chief scientist at NASA, said in a statement that scientists will find evidence of alien life within a decade.
Stofan said that the scientists know where and how to look for life beyond our Planet. The scientists have the necessary technology and are on the right path to implement it. Stofan added that she is positive that this will happen.
Stofan is not the only NASA scientist who is optimistic about finding alien life in the near future.
John Grunsfeld, a former astronaut and an associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said that he agrees with Stofan’s statements and believes that humans will find signs of alien life relatively soon, both in our solar system and beyond it.
Grunsfeld added that:
“I think we’re one generation away in our solar system, whether it’s on an icy moon or on Mars and one generation [away] on a planet around a nearby star.”
According to Grunsfeld, there are many recent discoveries suggesting that in our solar system and the Milky Way galaxy there are planets that could support forms of life.
One of Grunsfeld’s examples was the recent discovery of Jupiter’s moons Europa and Ganymede that have oceans of liquid water beneath their icy crust.
Also, he talked about Enceladus, which is a satellite of Saturn. Grunsfeld made a reference to Mars, which was covered in oceans a very long time ago and still holds evidence of that.
Recently, NASA’s Curiosity rover discovered organic molecules that contain carbon and “fixed” nitrogen, which are some of the ingredients that are needed for life to exist.
NASA’s Kepler telescope suggests that almost every star in the sky could host a planet, and most of these planets may host forms of life.
Paul Hertz, director of NASA’s Astrophysics Division, commented that just as the solar system is abundant in water, so is the greater galaxy.
According to Hertz, the Milky Way is very “soggy”. The scientists have seen water in the interstellar clouds that help form stellar and planetary systems.
There is water in the disks of debris that will turn into planetary systems surrounding the stars, Hertz stated.
Stofan said that searching for evidence of extraterrestrial life is more difficult than finding environments that could be habitable but NASA will not give up and will keep up with its expeditions in order to achieve this ambitious goal.
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Melissa Gansler
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