Are we alone in the universe? Top NASA scientists say the answer is almost certainly no. <\/p>\n
\"I believe we are going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth in the next decade and definitive evidencein the next 10 to 20 years,\" EllenStofan,chiefscientist for NASA, said at a public panel Tuesday in Washington. <\/p>\n
\"We know where to look, we know how to look, and in most cases we have the technology,\" she said. <\/p>\n
Jeffery Newmark, interim director of heliophysics at the agency put it this way: \"It's definitely not an if, it's a when.\" <\/p>\n
However, if visions of alien invasions are dancing in your head, you can let those go. <\/p>\n
\"We are not talking about little green men,\" Stofan said. \"We are talking about little microbes.\" <\/p>\n
Over the course of an hourlong presentation, NASA leaders described a flurry of recent discoveries that suggest we are closer than ever to figuring out where we might find life in the solar system and beyond. <\/p>\n
For example, Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA, cited a studythat analyzed the atmosphere aboveMars' polar ice caps and suggests that 50% of the planet's northern hemisphere once had oceans up to a mile deep, and that it had that water for a long period of time -- up to 1.2 billion years. <\/p>\n
\"We think that long period of time is necessary for life to get more complex,\" Stofan said. <\/p>\n
She added that getting human field geologists and astrobiologists on Mars would greatly improve the chances of finding fossils of past life on our nearest planetary neighbor. <\/p>\n
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NASA: We'll find alien life in 10 to 20 years<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Are we alone in the universe? Continue reading