Relatively soon, some prominent astrobiologists say, we will most likely have either found compelling evidence for extraterrestrial life or banished its possible existence to the ever shrinking edges of the cosmos beyond the rapidly expanding reach of our observations. Such answers could come by the end of the 2030s from any of a number of initiatives ardently seeking alien life. By then, samples from Mars will have arrived back on Earth, perhaps containing concrete proof the Red Planet once harbored organisms or still does today. Spacecraft at Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn’s Titan will be scouring both moons for signs of life residing in each world’s subsurface ocean or, in the case of Titan, on the surface itself. And advanced telescopes on the ground and in space should be probing the atmospheres of potentially habitable exoplanets around nearby stars, looking for any that share the same biology-infused cocktail of gases as our own living Earth.
As confident as astrobiologists may be that their quest will soon bear fruit, however, they are far less certain of how to communicate that success if and when it occurs. How should they go about informing the world that we are truly not alone in this universe—especially given their field’s long, troubled history of dubious claims and false alarms? They have been fooled before, after all.
To read more, click here.