According to NASA’s Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan, humankind is just 20-30 years away from finding “definite evidence” of alien life. During a panel discussion this week, she said, “We know where to look. We know how to look. In most cases, we have the technology, and we’re on a path to implementing it.” But before you get too excited about sweet intergalactic space battles or taking an extraterrestrial buddy for a spin around the neighborhood on the handlebars of your Huffy, you should probably know that NASA doesn’t think the kind of life we’ll find will look like David Bowie. “We are not talking about little green men. We are talking about little microbes.” But, according to Stofan’s fellow scientist, those microbes could be right in our planetary backyard. Former astronaut John Grunsfeld added, “I think we’re one generation away in our solar system, whether it’s on an icy moon or on Mars, and one generation [away] on a planet around a nearby star” …
