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The search for extraterrestrial life was back in the news again this week. Learned astronomers told the Royal Society that evidence of life elsewhere in the universe is likely to be found during the 21st century – but the idea that aliens were already here flying around in UFOs was laughed out of court.
That was the signal put out to the media by the world’s leading space scientists who gathered in London for a two day conference to mark the 50th anniversary of the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Lord Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society and Astronomer Royal, said the chances of discovering life during this century were better than ever.
With powerful space telescopes such as that carried by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, now orbiting the sun, the chances of discovering Earth-like planets orbiting stars in other solar systems have increased. “Were we to find life, even the simplest life, elsewhere that would clearly be one of the great discoveries of the 21st century,” Rees told the BBC. "I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms that we can't conceive."
For decades the optimistic predictions of SETI scientists like Frank Drake and Paul Davies, who both spoke at the conference, have encouraged the rest of us to accept that intelligent civilisations must exist elsewhere in the vast universe. But the days when governments feared mass panic if such claims were confirmed appear to be a thing of the past. Bookies Ladbrokes slashed the odds on ET life being found by the end of the decade from 5000-1 to 1000-1 after Lord Rees made his comments, which suggests we no longer fear aliens but are desperate to meet them.
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