14 DAY TRIAL // Just the other day, NASA Administrator Charles Frank Bolden Jr. sat for a Sky News First News Hotseat interview. Taking questions from the public, he was asked by young space enthusiast 10-year-old Carmen Dearing whether he believed in alien life.
Without hesitation, the NASA official admitted that, although scientists are yet to find bulletproof evidence that alien lifeforms really do populate other orbs in the Solar System and maybe even beyond it, he for one is convinced that we are not alone in the universe.
We now know that the cosmos comprises billions of solar systems similar to our own and that there are millions of planets not very different to Earth out there. Hence, it's safe to assume that our planet isn't the only one in the universe capable of sustaining life.
“I do believe that we will someday find other forms of life or a form of life, if not in our solar system then in some of the other solar systems - the billions of solar systems in the universe,” Charles Frank Bolden Jr. said, as cited by DM.
Not the first NASA official to speak of alien life
Just a few weeks back, NASA chief scientist Ellen Stofan was also asked whether she believed in alien life. Her answer: given recent advances in the field of science and technology, we'll have evidence of alien lifeforms in about 10 years and we'll know for sure in 20, 30 tops.
Mind you, these alien lifeforms that NASA's Charles Frank Bolden Jr. and Ellen Stofan expect we'll very soon discover are not teeny tiny green creatures like the ones the movie industry has been showing us. Rather, what these scientists have in mind are alien microorganisms like the bacteria here on Earth.
Hoping to find proof of alien life in our Solar System before going in search of it on distant planets, NASA is now hard at work designing and building a spacecraft fit to explore Jupiter's moon Europa. This spacecraft should be completed and launch sometime in the 2020s.
The reason NASA wishes to explore Europa as part of its quest to find alien life is that, according to data thus far obtained with the help of telescopes and other scientific instruments, this orb appears to hide a massive liquid ocean under its surface. Therefore, it might also harbor life.
