Washington: NASA’s chief scientist has claimed that they could find evidence of alien life in the universe as early as 2025.
Ellen Stofan said during a panel discussion that focused on the space agency’s efforts to search for habitable worlds and alien life that they are going to have definitive evidence within 20 to 30 years, as they now know where and how to look.
Former astronaut John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, shared Stofan’s optimism, predicting that signs of life will be found relatively soon both in the Earth’s solar system and beyond.
Recent discoveries suggested that the solar system and broader Milky Way galaxy teem with environments that could support life as we know it, he further added.
Hunting for evidence of alien life is a much trickier proposition than identifying potentially habitable environments. But researchers are working steadily toward that more involved and ambitious goal.
For example, the agency’s next Mars rover, scheduled to launch in 2020, will search for signs of past life and cache samples for a possible return to Earth for analysis.
NASA also aims to land astronauts on Mars in the 2030s.
NASA is also planning out a mission to Europa, which may launch as early as 2022. The main goal of this 2.1 billion dollars mission will be to shed light on the icy moon’s potential habitability, but it could also search for signs of alien life.
Agency officials are considering ways to sample and study the plumes of water vapor that apparently erupt from Europa’s South Polar Region.