Alien life breakthrough: NASA head CONFIRMS belief that 'extraterrestrials are out there'
2Alien life breakthrough: NASA head CONFIRMS belief that 'extraterrestrials are out there'
BILL NELSON, the chief of NASA, has confirmed that he believes there is alien life somewhere in the Universe.
Mr Nelson was speaking during the Financial Times' Investing in Space Summit. The administrator of the US space agency spoke to Science Editor Clive Cookson about various topics, from his relationship with Roscosmos to the threats that astronauts now face in space. At the end of his interview, Mr Cookson asked Mr Nelson whether he "personally" believed that "extraterrestrial life is out there".
The former US Senator said: "The short answer to your question is yes.
"The longer answer is to look how big the universe is."
Earlier in the conversation, he noted that NASA telescopes that are "a million miles from Earth" are receiving an infrared spectrum light that was emitted 13.5 billion years ago.
These rays travelled at the speed of light, at 186,000 miles per second or nearly 300,000,000 meters per second.
Mr Nelson noted that this helps illustrate the gargantuan size of the universe, adding: "We know in the universe, having been created about 13.8 billion years ago, that we have for example in our galaxy, millions if not billions of stars and sun.
"We know in addition in our galaxy, there are millions if not billions of galaxy with millions/billion suns.
"Is there a possibility in a universe that big that conditions like the Earth have been created?
"Of course, there's a possibility, and there's something so big that my mind cannot even understand how big that is.
"One thing we are going to do with the space telescope, we have already identified a bunch of planets - exoplanets we call them- that are already revolving around other Suns."
Mr Nelson added that with the new James Webb Telescope, which was launched in December, NASA will be able to get a detailed look at these planets and determine the chemical composition of their atmosphere and determine if they can have a "positively habitable atmosphere."
Regarded as the spiritual successor to the Hubble Observatory, James Webb is the most powerful space telescope that has ever been launched into space, bringing with it a vastly improved infrared resolution and sensitivity.
This means that the telescope will be able to see objects that are too distant, faint and old for detection by Hubble — such as, for example, the cosmos’ earliest stars and galaxies.
Scientists at NASA are also set to use the impressive satellite to study the ginormous black hole called Sagittarius Aor Sgr A that lies in the centre of the Milky Way.
The closest exoplanet to Earth is the Proxima Centauri b, which is 4.2 light-years away, or 265,000 times the distance between our planet and the Sun.
According to researchers, the James Webb, which is the most expensive telescope ever built, is set to revolutionise the study of these exoplanets.
NASA has stated: "Among the investigations planned for the first year are studies of two hot exoplanets classified as “super-Earths” for their size and rocky composition: the lava-covered 55 Cancri e and the airless LHS 3844 b.
"Researchers will train Webb’s high-precision spectrographs on these planets with a view to understanding the geologic diversity of planets across the galaxy, and the evolution of rocky planets like Earth."