If alien life exists in our solar system, we’ll know within 30 years, NASA scientists say
IF Martians exist, we’ll find them within 30 years, NASA scientists say. And if we don’t scientists will just look further out.
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IF Martians exist, we’ll find them within 30 years, NASA scientists say.
A delegation of experts on exoplanets — planets outside our solar system — has descended on Adelaide for National Science week.
On Monday night, they will speak about the search for habitable worlds.
Two NASA exoplanet experts told The Advertiser that the search for ET in our solar system is likely to be over in decades — while they continue to look far beyond and deeper into the universe.
Andrew Rushby, a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow, studies planetary habitability.
He uses the powerful Kepler space telescope to study planets and looks out for the so-called Goldilocks zone where planets could host life.
But he said it would take 100,000 years to actually travel to the nearest one.
Meanwhile, he said, in a vote of about 150 top scientists, most were confident that if other life exists, we would find it in 30 years.
“At least within our solar system,” Dr Rushby said.
His colleague Jonathan Fraine got a glimpse of how it might feel to discover life out there — he led a team that discovered water on a small exoplanet — a prerequisite for life.
“That was incredibly thrilling. It was a defining moment in my career. I felt the passion of science and the discovery,” he said.
“It was bigger than I thought it was going to be.”
He also has hoped that extraterrestrial life would be discovered, but said it was more likely to be bacteria than anything more complicated.
He is working on the James Webb Space Telescope, which will launch in the coming years.
He said its capability was “far beyond everything we’ve ever experienced”.
“Once (that) launches, that will blow everything we have out of the water,” he said, of the biggest and most expensive telescope ever made.
Powerful space telescopes can monitor planets and detect the makeup of their atmospheres, which in turn can give clues about life out there.