More optimistic scientists have said it could happen more quickly. The director of NASA, Charles Bolden, told British schoolchildren in 2015 that he believed that "we will someday find other forms of life or a form of life, if not in our solar system then in some of the other solar systems."īut Bolden declined to put a timescale on such a discovery and other experts-including popular astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson-have it at least 50 years away. NASA/JPL-Caltechīut despite all these advances, extraterrestrial life remains a mystery. The wobble, technically referred to as a libration, reveals that the crust of Enceladus is disconnected from its rocky interior. Scientists on NASA's Cassini mission determined that the slight wobble of Enceladus as it orbits Saturn is much too large for the moon to be frozen from surface to core. Hydrogen is vital building block for life for micro-organisms, suggesting that some form of life could inhabit Enceladus. But the Cassini also observed that plumes of gas, including hydrogen, were spewing out of a geyser and into space. The surface of the moon is covered by an ocean encased in a thick shell of ice. NASA's Cassini spacecraft, in the final months of a 20-year mission earlier in 2017, pinpointed Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn, as a key site for further exploration. Researchers have even been able to identify the specific location where life might be most likely to exist outside Earth. All of which were a similar size to Earth and three were located within the so-called "habitable zone" of the star-not so far away that water would freeze, nor too close that the planet would burn up. In February, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope team said it had found a system of seven planets orbiting Trappist-1. NASA has even found evidence of another potential solar system-a collection of planets orbiting around a single star-located just 39 light years from Earth. Three of the planets (e, f and g) are located firmly within the "habitable zone." NASA/JPL-Caltech Since the Kepler Space Telescope was launched in 2009 it has discovered more than 4,000 possible planets, including 30 that are a similar size to Earth and could potentially sustain life. It is true that space exploration has made massive advances in recent years. Read more: NASA discovers humans have created an artificial barrier around Earth, and it could protect us from space weather "Taking into account all of the different activities and missions that are specifically searching for evidence of alien life, we are on the verge of making one of the most profound, unprecedented discoveries in history," said Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, before the House Committee on Science, Space in April.īut while Zurbuchen and others at NASA are enthusiastic about the prospect of finding alien life, they have not claimed to have actually done so. NASA has made statements recently that suggest that the discovery of aliens is a matter of when, rather than if. On Twitter, Facebook, Google News, and Instagram.But while Anonymous is right to point out that NASA is probably closer than ever in human history to discovering extraterrestrial life, it may be a leap to say concrete evidence for it exists. These measurements can give researchers information on the mass and size of an exoplanet.įollow HT Tech for the latest tech news and reviews, also keep up with us They've used indirect methods to measure effects of a planet on its nearby star. But many astronomers believe that there's a good chance of existence of life on planets orbiting other stars, and it might be possible that life could first be found there.Īs per the report, theoretically, around 300 million potentially habitable planets exist in the Milky Way Galaxy alone and several habitable planets equal to the size of earth exist within only 30 light-years of Earth – potential humanity's galactic neighbors.Īs of now, astronomers have discovered over 5,000 exoplanets, and some of them were potentially habitable ones. However, presence of life is yet to be confirmed. They have found some evidence that supports the existence of water molecules like the subsurface aquifers on Mars or in the oceans of Jupiter's moon Europa. Scientists have found the possibility of the existence of life on planets beyond earth.
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