We could find alien life but politicians don't want to, claims scientist
- This is according to Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at Seti Institute
- Data suggests our galaxy has 40 billion planets with potential for life
- But finding these depends on sophisticated and expensive experiments
- 'Sadly much of this reconnaissance hardware is still on the drawing boards, not in space,' said Dr Shostak
While alien life can be seen nightly on television and in films, it has never been seen in space.
Not so much as a microbe, dead or alive, let alone a wrinkle-faced Klingon.
Despite this lack of protoplasmic presence, there are many researchers – sober, sceptical academics – who think that life beyond Earth is rampant.
While alien life on planets has been shown by artists (such as in this illustration) it has never been seen in space. But there are many sober, sceptical academics who think that life beyond Earth is rampant
They suggest proof may come within a generation. These scientists support their sunny point of view with a few astronomical facts that were unknown a generation ago.
In particular, and thanks largely to the success of Nasa's Kepler space telescope, we can now safely claim that the universe is stuffed with temperate worlds.
In the past two decades, thousands of planets have been discovered around other stars. New ones are turning up at the rate of at least one a day.
More impressive than the tally is their sheer abundance. It seems the majority of stars have planets, implying the existence of a trillion of these small bodies in the Milky Way galaxy alone.
This is the proposed European Space Agency mission called Plato, which is comprised of small telescopes. Its jobs is to find all, or very nearly, of the transiting exoplanets around the sky's brightest stars
A deeper analysis of Kepler data suggests that as many as one in five stars could sport a special kind of planet, one that is the same size as Earth and with similar average temperatures.
WE WILL FIND ALIEN LIFE IN 20 YEARS, CLAIMS NASA
40 billion worlds in our galaxy could host alien life, according to a recent study.
And Nasa claims that we will be able to find that life within the next 20 years, with a high chance it will be outside our solar system.
During a public talk last month in Washington, the space agency outlined a roadmap to search for life in the universe using a number of current and future telescopes.
Do we believe there is life beyond Earth?' said former astronaut and Nasa Administrator Charles Bolden.
'I would venture to say that most of my colleagues here today say it is improbable that in the limitless vastness of the universe we humans stand alone.'
Such planets, styled as 'habitable', could be swathed by atmospheres and awash in liquid water.
In other words, the Milky Way could be host to tens of billions of Earth's cousins.
It is hard to accept that all these worlds are sterile, a circumstance that would make us, and all the flora and fauna of our planet, a miracle. Miracles have little status in science.
Of course, just because there is a lot of attractive, cosmic real estate doesn't mean finding inhabitants would be easy.
There are only three ways to do that, and they all depend on sophisticated and expensive experiments.
First, we could find life nearby. There is real effort to do that, particularly in our reconnaissance of Mars.
So far, most of the search has been indirect: deploying rovers whose job is to locate the best places to dig into the red planet, and possibly uncover either fossilised or extant microbes beneath the sterile surface.
These are not attempts to find life. They are attempts to find places where life could be found. Progress is deliberate, and it is sluggish.
Without doubt, Mars remains the favourite bet for biology. Nonetheless, some experts prefer to wager on the moons of Saturn and Jupiter.
We could find alien life, but politicians don't have the will, according to Seti's Seth Shostak (pictured)
At least five of these satellites seem to be home to some sloshy environments – mostly liquid water, although in the case of Titan, natural gas.
Again, the type of life that could best thrive on these moons would be microscopic.
Sensing its presence might be accomplished in several ways, ranging from simple flyby missions that nab effluvia from natural geysers, to sending elaborate drilling rigs to penetrate the ten miles of ice that separate the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa from the mammoth seas that lie below.
Sadly much of this reconnaissance hardware is still on the drawing boards, not in space. Progress is slow, mostly because funding is low.
A second scheme for sniffing out evidence of biology is to assay the atmospheres of planets around other stars.
This is done using a time-honoured technique of astronomy, spectroscopy – an approach that would allow researchers to learn the composition of an atmosphere at many light-years' distance.
While an experiment to find oxygen or methane in someone else's air is straightforward to describe, it is hard to do. That is because planets are dim, and the stars they orbit are bright.
This Nasa graphic shows how the number of confirmed planets has dramatically increased since the launch of Kepler in 2009 and its subsequent studies of distant stars
40 billion worlds in our galaxy could host alien life, according to a recent study. And Nasa claims that we will be able to find that life within the next 20 years, with a high chance it will be outside our solar system
Various solutions to this problem have been imagined, including multi-element, orbiting telescopes and giant light blockers, or occulters, in space.
It is rocket science, but it is not as hard as curing the common cold. Engineers could build this stuff within a dozen years, but only if they had the money.
The third approach to finding biology beyond Earth is looking beyond microbes for intelligent life by eavesdropping on radio signals or flashing laser lights.
More antennae and better receivers could speed up this search, but once again, funding is the limiting factor.
President Barack Obama announced that the proposed 2015 Nasa budget has about $2.5 billion (£1.5 billion) for planetary science, astrophysics and continued work on the new James Webb space telescope
For perspective, consider that the proposed 2015 Nasa budget has about $2.5 billion (£1.5 billion) for planetary science, astrophysics and continued work on the new James Webb space telescope – categories that encompass all the planetary searches described above and more.
That is considerably less than one-thousandth of the total US federal budget. The budgets for Seti, which takes the third approach, are a thousand times less.
So it boils down to this: we don't know for certain that there is life in space, but the circumstances of the universe certainly suggest that this is a plausible idea.
Finding it would be extraordinarily exciting, but because the payoff is uncertain, the investments in searching have been modest.
Of course, if you don't ante up, you will never win the jackpot. And that is a question of will.
Seth Shostak is a senior astronomer at Seti Institute in California. This article originally appeared in The Conversation.
Most watched News videos
- Blair Logan points out 'fire hazard' in eerie gardening clip
- Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington dies aged 41
- Heroic Starbucks customer hits armed robber with chair
- John Heard tribute: Home alone dad, his most iconic role
- Spicer sneaks out White House side door at 2:18 after resigning
- Minneapolis Police Chief responds to shooting of Justine Ruszczyk
- Long Gill River Kingsdale fills up with after heavy downpour
- Meet the bizarre goat born with a demonic human-looking face
- Disturbing video of teens watching drowning man and doing nothing
- Amazing idea: this barber covers his shop floor with pennies
- William and Harry discuss the rawness of talking about mother Diana
- Mysterious moment morphing UFO spotted flying over Cornwall