Extraterrestrial life will be discovered in the next 25 years, according to top space boffin.
Aliens will be discovered within the next 25 years says top space boffin
Astrophysicist Dr Sascha Quanz, has set an ambitious timeframe thanks to tech advances which have been developed for the new James Webb Space Telescope.
The space equipment has already managed to capture extraordinary images of planets outside our solar system beyond the Milky Way galaxy.
Dr Quanz says 25 years is not “unrealistic” as his team at Switzerland’s ETH Zurich institute have been working on an instrument for a new scope that will be able to focus more on Earth-like planets potentially harbouring alien life.
He said: “There’s no guarantee for success. But we’re going to learn other things on the way.
“The primary goal of the instrument is to take the first picture of a terrestrial planet, potentially similar to Earth, around one of the very nearest stars.
"But our long-term vision is to do that not only for a few stars but for dozens and to investigate the atmospheres of dozens of terrestrial exoplanets.”
Quanz hailed the release of James Webb Space a fortnight ago for capturing a direct image of exoplanet HIP 65426 as its’s a “very special system.”
He added: “This is what Webb can do in terms of taking pictures of planets."
But he said it could not “get to the small planets”, explaining: “Webb is not powerful enough to do that.”