Experts are optimistic of detecting life signs on a faraway world within our lifetimes - possibly in the next few years.
Alien life in Universe: Scientists say finding it is 'only a matter of time'::Experts are optimistic of detecting life signs on a faraway world within our lifetimes - possibly in the next few years.
What a nothingburger of an article.... not even mentioning the fermi paradox. No actual new information and whatever do they want to say when they talk about "radically changing the way we think about the search for life in the universe"?!
I think aliens are real and most likely the largest governments made deals to get technology in exchange for letting aliens experiment on people (abductions).
All this goes under conspiracy theories of course.
There were many people in the 80s and 90s waking up while being abducted and since they couldn't prove anything, they weren't believed.
To me it's completely uninteresting if scientists will find germs that are alive or not on other planets. We are way past that, in my opinion.
Literally the first sentence: "Many astronomers are no longer asking whether there is life elsewhere in the Universe."
Then never in the article so they do any kind of clarifying or providing proof for the "Many" part of the statement. Most this article is about a single person.
This might be really obvious, but I've never heard anyone mention it specifically - it's well known that light takes time to reach us, so when we look at far away objects, we are also looking back in time - surely this has a huge impact on detecting life?
If we were able to see what planets that could support life look like as they are currently, then perhaps we would see life?
Yeah but to see actual signs of life on those planets we'd need to either be able to see clear images of the surface, or have some way (other than the light method we use ATM) to detect microscopic lifeforms, right?
I'm just asking to try understand better, the only mention I've heard of life on other planets have been from chemicals produced by life detected in the light that passes through the planets' atmosphere, but I wouldn't say that is definitive proof
Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) recently detected tantalising hints at life on a planet outside our Solar System - and it has many more worlds in its sights.
The planet is in what astronomers call ''the Goldilocks zone' - the right distance away from its star for the surface temperature to be neither too hot nor too cold, but just right for there to be liquid water, which is essential to support life.
Prof Nikku Madhusudhan of the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge University, who led the study, told me that if the hints are confirmed "it would radically change the way we think about the search for life".
That has injected fresh impetus, according to Dr Nathalie Cabrol, director of Seti's Carl Sagan Center for the study of life in the Universe.
But chemical signatures from faraway atmospheres, interesting readings from moon flybys and even microfossils from Mars are all open to interpretation, Dr Cabrol argues.
All the elements are in place for a discovery that will be more than just an incredible scientific breakthrough, according to Dr Subhajit Sarker of Cardiff University, who is a member of the team studying K2-18b.
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In order to reasonably say this, you have to have solved the Drake Equation. Which you can't do until you've actually found life on another planet. So what is this astronomer basing their statement on? Hopes and dreams? Gut feeling?