Alien contact is likely to come from machines living on other worlds outside of the solar system, the astronomer royal Martin Rees has said.
Prof Lord Rees, 72, told the Cheltenham Science Festival ‘I’m not holding my breath’ for signs of extraterrestrial life, but said if a signal was picked up it would not be from organic life, like humans.
He said that most space exploration would be carried out by machines, which would not constrained by the physical difficulties of existing in space or on other planets.
“I think it is quite likely that within a few centuries the overriding intelligence will be machines because they will have an easier time spreading beyond the Earth because they are not organic and most exploration will be by machines and not humans,” he said.