True believers at NASA press search for ETs within two decades

NASA claims we’ll find aliens in the next 10 to 20 years – and now the agency is revving up its efforts to track them down.

 'I believe we are going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth in the next decade and definitive evidence in the next 10 to 20 years,' said Ellen Stofan, chief scientist for NASA. / Getty
‘I believe we are going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth in the next decade and definitive evidence in the next 10 to 20 years,’ said Ellen Stofan, chief scientist for NASA. / Getty

The group has put together a team of ‘extraterrestrial experts’ to see if any of the planets discovered outside our solar system are habitable. …The initiative, dubbed Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (Nexss), will include scientists from 10 universities including Stanford, the University of California and Yale.

The study of exoplanets is a relatively new field with discovery of the first exoplanet around a star like our sun was made in 1995. Since the launch of the Kepler space telescope six years ago, more than 1,000 exoplanets have been found, with thousands of additional candidates waiting to be confirmed. …

The announcement comes just weeks after NASA’s top scientist predicted we could be on the verge of finding life on one of them. During a talk in Washington last month, the space agency announced that humanity is likely to encounter extra-terrestrials within a decade. ‘I believe we are going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth in the next decade and definitive evidence in the next 10 to 20 years,’ Ellen Stofan, chief scientist for NASA said. …

Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA, noted that a recent study of the Martian atmosphere found 50 per cent of the planet’s northern hemisphere once had oceans a mile deep.

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