A renowned British astronomer predicts that extraterrestrial life will be discovered on other planets in the upcoming years.
Associate professor of astrophysics at the University of Exeter, Professor Sasha Hinkley, thinks it is “increasingly accessible” that “during his lifetime” we may discover the verifiable evidence of alien life.
He said that cutting-edge equipment, like as the $10 billion (£7.4 billion) James Webb satellite telescope, is ready to find “biosignatures”—atmospheres on exoplanets that contain compounds produced by living beings, such as oxygen, that may signal life.
Prof. Hinkley went on to say that even if “biosignatures” were found, they might not be proof of an alien culture on another planet. Prof. Hinkley went on to say that even if “biosignatures” were found, they might not be proof of an alien culture on another planet.
That came after a task group of experts from the US, UK, and Switzerland predicted that alien life will be found on thousands of planets over the next 10 to 20 years, making it the most important discovery in human history.
Prof. Hinkley believes there is a strong likelihood that life of some kind exists elsewhere in the cosmos. Throughout my lifetime, there is a growing likelihood that life will be found on an exoplanet. Yet even if unmistakable evidence of life were discovered on other worlds, the astronomer emphasised that they might not always signify communication with alien beings.
To be clear, finding life on another planet does not always mean an alien life civilization exists there, nor does it necessarily mean that we will be able to communicate with it, he said in an article for The Spectator.
According to a “conservative” NASA estimate, there are 100 million planets in our galaxy that are capable of harbouring alien life. And according to the space agency, we will be able to find such life within the next 20 years, with a very high likelihood that it will be located outside of our solar system.
The James Webb space telescope will be launched in 2021, along with additional devices, and they are already offering vistas of the universe that have never been seen before. Its objective is to improve human understanding of the genesis and development of planets, stars, and galaxies.
Prof. Hinkley claims that more cutting-edge space technology is already in the works, and that Nasa has been charged with developing a space mission to search for biosignatures on exoplanets by the 2040s.
