NASA scientists say it won’t be long before they’re able to prove that life on other planets really does exist.
“We believe we’re very, very close in terms of technology and science to actually finding the other Earth and our chance to find signs of life on another world,” Sara Seager, a physicist at MIT and the recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, told a packed crowd Monday at NASA headquarters in Washington, according to website LiveScience.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden characterized the ability of earthly researchers to uncover signs of aliens as inevitable.
“Do we believe there is life beyond Earth? I would venture to say that most of my colleagues here today say it is improbable that in the limitless vastness of the universe we humans stand alone,” he told the Los Angeles Times.
NASA has been seeking out alien life forms via the Kepler Space Telescope since 2009. The scope has rooted out thousands of exoplanets, but has yet to reveal definitive signs of alien life forms, researchers reported. So now, scientists are turning to the next-generation James Webb Space Telescope, set for operation in 2018, LiveScience reported.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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