Alien life could be found within 20 years, say SETI astronomers

Astronomers have told the US Congress that extraterrestrial life could be discovered as soon as “in the next 20 years” and the search “warrants scientific inquiry”.

Dan Werthimer and Seth Shostak of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley presented evidence to members of a Congressional science committee on Wednesday, with the group looking to secure further funding in their search.

Currently, the majority of searches for extraterrestrial life is focused on Mars and other potential life-bearing moons within our solar system, as Shostak said:

“At least a half-dozen other worlds (besides Earth) that might have life are in our solar system. The chances of finding it, I think, are good, and if that happens, it’ll happen in the next 20 years, depending on the financing”

In his written testimony, Werthimer added:

“In the last fifty years, evidence has steadily mounted that the components and conditions we believe necessary for life are common and perhaps ubiquitous in our galaxy…There may even be primitive extraterrestrial life in our own solar system, perhaps on a moon of Jupiter or Saturn. Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, is thought to have a liquid water ocean beneath its icy surface, perhaps a good environment for life as we know it.

However, there are also other initiatives to remotely examine the atmosphere of distant planets for signs of life such as methane or oxygen, and SETI is focused on the search for advanced alien civilisation that are beaming radio signals into space or giving off other signals that we may pick up from Earth.

To offer some perspective of why we have not yet found life elsewhere in the universe, the astronomers noted that the human race has only had radio technology for the last 100 years, and the first television shows broadcast will only now have passed 10,000 stars. As Shostak concluded: