After decades of broadcasting signals and sending probes to deep space, the human race has still not found evidence that there is life beyond Earth.
That is why, on Wednesday, Oct. 10, astrobiologists convened to reflect on the past few years and figure out a new strategy in the search for extraterrestrial life in the universe. A blue-ribbon panel made up of experts in the field assembled the 196-page report at the behest of Congress.
"If we're really going to achieve a goal as lofty as this, then outside-the-box thinking is really required," stated Barbara Sherwood Lollar, an astrobiologist and chair of the committee.
The report, which was made available online via The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's The National Academies Press, discusses the extent of the knowledge that scientists, through numerous extensive studies, have acquired in the field of biology, including about life here on Earth.
The report stresses that recent discoveries about organisms that thrive deep under the ocean or beyond the surface and places that the sunlight never touches completely change the way how science look at life and informs new avenues where future missions should search for life on other planets. In particular, it suggests that existence of subsurface life that otherwise might not be detected.
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