It is the firm belief of Ellen Stofan (Cheif Scientist, NASA), that strong indications of ‘life beyond Earth’ will be in our grasp within the next decade. This ideal alongside the view that definitive evidence will be available in the another 20 to 30 years has caused considerable excitement.
The colossal claim was made at a panel discussion held at NASA’s headquarters on Tuesday. Unique in it’s design, the panel allowed the general public to enquire into recent discoveries of water and organics in our solar system and our never ending search for habitable worlds among stars.
With the knowledge of where and how to find it, NASA’s chief scientist assures us that we won’t be able to get our hands on actual aliens but instead little microbes providing a clear indication of life.
“It’s highly improbably that we’re alone in this Universe. As told by the former Canadian Defence Minister Paul Hellyer to a Russian TV program, aliens have been visiting our planet for thousands of years […] there’s so much evidence”, there are many such tales surrounding the myth of UFO’s. But will we find answers to questions like, ‘are we alone?’, ‘where do we come from?’ and ‘where are we heading to?’
Last year, using NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, astronomers discovered an Earth-size planet, which is most probably orbiting a star like our Sun in a close habitable zone. This discovery of other planets is a major step forward. With the expected launch of James Webb Space Telescope in 2018, the planet-hunting mission will get an extra boost. As told by Dr. John Grunsfeld on Tuesday, a mission to study the moon of Jupiter, Uropa, is being initialised to see if it has any signs of life.
With the aspiration to find signs of alien life, there is going to be a major need for new rockets, new approvals in both getting into space and to possess larger telescopes but for now we do seem to be heading in the right direction with a potential to discover incontrovertible evidence of UFO existence.
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