Let's be upfront about this: We still don't have hard-nosed evidence for any life that's not of this Earth. That fact hasn't changed since the time of Aristotle.
But unlike that gifted Greek, a lot of folks today think proof of alien biology could grace the next news cycle. After all, astronomers have recently uncovered thousands of new planets; space agencies have relentlessly hurled hardware at dozens of solar system targets; and SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) scientists continue to build new equipment for tuning in ET's radio chatter.
Research budgets may be low, but expectations are high. Among the long list of locales where we might uncover life-as-we-don't-know-it, which are my favorites? In other words, where do I think we'll first find bits of self-organized chemistry that would forever – forever – be Exhibit A in our argument that life is a cosmic infection, rather than something extraordinarily rare or even unique?
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