Nasa scientist says alien life ‘absolutely’ exists – and in a surprising place

A Nasa scientists has said she believes there is ‘absolutely’ life beyond Earth – and it could be much closer than we think.

Speaking at a deep space exhibition in New York, Dr Michelle Thaller reflected on the chances of extraterrestrial life existing, and said ‘I definitely think we’ll find life on another planet’.

‘I think that in our own solar system, we’re quite close to it, but once again we don’t have that 100 per cent thing,’ she said, speaking to the US Sun.

‘On Mars, we see chemistry that on Earth if it were here we would say is due to life.

‘But the question is, how well do we understand Mars and are we being fooled by something?’

However, alien lifeforms could also be found on a surprise neighbour – Venus. Shrouded in an intense atmosphere that has crushed all landers sent to explore the scorching, toxic planet, no life could possibly survive on its surface. Up in the clouds may be a different matter.

‘I never expected Venus,’ said Dr Thaller, a scientist at Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center. ‘[But] Venus is now one where we see something in the atmosphere that looks very much like it could be produced by bacteria.’

Dr Thaller is not alone in this school of thought, with a number of scientific studies proposing the same theory.

In the opposite direction, away from the Sun, two missions are set to explore Jupiter’s icy moons for signs of life from 2030, the European Space Agency’s Juice and Nasa’s Clipper.

‘We see possible signs of life in the atmosphere of Venus, and possibly underneath the ice in the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn,’ said Dr Thaller.

‘The solar system may be teeming with simple life, microbial life.

‘We just have to get that 100 per cent certainty to say that we found it and we don’t have that yet.’

Earlier this year, Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus was found to contain all six of the essential elements needed for life after phosphorous was detected. However, no definitive signs of life have been detected. Yet.

‘That’s the thing, we’re waiting until there’s nothing else it could possibly be because can you imagine the kind of trouble we’d get in,’ said Dr Thaller.

‘We don’t have absolute proof yet. Do I think there’s life out there? Absolutely.’

Dr Thaller was speaking at Beyond the Light, an exhibition at Artehouse in the Chelsea neighbourhood that offers an immersive deep space experience.

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