NASA: We will find alien life within 20 years
At NASA's Washington headquarters on Monday, a panel of space program scientists announced their estimation that humans will find extraterrestrial life within 20 years, going as far as to say that the estimate is a "conservative" one.
NASA outlined its plan to search for alien life and said it would launch the Transiting Exoplanet Surveying Satellite in 2017. The agency predicts that as many as 100 million worlds in the Milky Way galaxy may be home to alien life.
"Just imagine the moment when we find potential signatures of life," Matt Mountain, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, said at the announcement. "Imagine the moment when the world wakes up and the human race realizes that its long loneliness in time and space may be over — the possibility we're no longer alone in the universe."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
NASA astronomer Kevin Hand seconded Mountain's opinion, saying that within the next 20 years, "we will find out we are not alone in the universe," suggesting that extraterrestrial life may exist on Jupiter's moon Europa. The scientists at the panel said NASA's efforts are focusing on finding alien life on planets or stars outside the Earth's solar system.
For more detail about NASA's current projects and search for alien life, watch the video of Monday's panel below. --Meghan DeMaria
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Meghan DeMaria is a staff writer at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked for USA Today and Marie Claire.
-
6 charming homes for the whimsical
Feature Featuring a 1924 factory-turned-loft in San Francisco and a home with custom murals in Yucca Valley
By The Week Staff Published
-
Big tech's big pivot
Opinion How Silicon Valley's corporate titans learned to love Trump
By Theunis Bates Published
-
Stacy Horn's 6 favorite works that explore the spectrum of evil
Feature The author recommends works by Kazuo Ishiguro, Anthony Doerr, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Blue Origin conducts 1st test flight of massive rocket
Speed Read The Jeff Bezos-founded space company conducted a mostly successful test flight of its 320-foot-tall New Glenn rocket
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
US won its war on 'murder hornets,' officials say
Speed Read The announcement comes five years after the hornets were first spotted in the US
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Dark energy data suggest Einstein was right
Speed Read Albert Einstein's 1915 theory of general relativity has been proven correct, according to data collected by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
New DNA tests of Pompeii dead upend popular stories
Speed Read An analysis of skeletal remains reveals that some Mount Vesuvius victims have been wrongly identified
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
NASA's Europa Clipper blasts off, seeking an ocean
Speed Read The ship is headed toward Jupiter on a yearslong journey
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Detailed map of fly's brain holds clues to human mind
Speed Read This remarkable fruit fly brain analysis will aid in future human brain research
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Blind people will listen to next week's total eclipse
Speed Read While they can't see the event, they can hear it with a device that translates the sky's brightness into music
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Melting polar ice is messing with global timekeeping
Speed Read Ice loss caused by climate change is slowing the Earth's rotation
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published