Science fiction is running out of space. The hunt for alien life is heating up. Now, it’s no longer a question of “if” we will find life out there. It’s a question of “what”.
Land and space based telescopes scouring our skies have in the past few years produced 21 planets that are possible contenders for containing life. That’s out of 1793 planets detected orbiting distant stars so far.
The very existence of these planets, which fit within the band of conditions ranging from the barren wastes of Mars through to the frigid oceans under the surface of the moon Europa, prompted NASA earlier this year to make a startling prediction.
“I think in the next 20 years we will find out if we are not alone in the universe,” NASA Astronomer Kevin Hand told an awe-struck media conference in June.
A colleague took it one step further.
“Imagine the moment that the news breaks we’ve discovered Earth 2.0,” Matt Mountain, the director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, told the panel.
“Imagine the moment the whole world wakes up to the news our long loneliness in time and space may have ended. We may no longer be alone in the universe.”
"We may be no longer be alone..?" Ahem... To read more and view the video, click here.