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NASA research scientist Dr. Michelle Thaller says she definitely thinks we will find aliens on another planet and that the chances are very especially good on Venus and Mars.
Speaking to the US Sun at Beyond the Light, an exhibition at Artechouse in New York, Thaller said, “I definitely think we’ll find life on another planet.
“I think that in our own Solar System, we’re quite close to it but once again we don’t have that 100 percent thing.
“On Mars, we see chemistry that on Earth if it were here we would say is due to life.
“But the question is, how well do we understand Mars and are we being fooled by something?”
In 2022, scientists learned that fossilized microorganisms and chemical signatures of alien life may have been preserved in meteorites found on the surface of Mars.
Venus, Earth’s so called sister planet, is another planet that has been heavily scrutinized in researchers’ search for alien life.
“We see possible signs of life in the atmosphere of Venus,” Dr. Thaller continued.
“Possibly underneath the ice in the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
“The Solar System may be teaming with simple life, microbial life.
“We just have to get that 100 percent certainty to say that we found it and we don’t have that yet.”
In 2020, research conducted by the Royal Astronomical Society revealed the presence of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus.
“This could be the first observation we’ve made which reveals an alien biosphere and, what do you know, it’s on the closest planet to home in the entire cosmos,” David Grinspoon of the Planetary Science Institute said at the time.
Another study, published in 2020, revealed possible evidence that alien life may exist under ancient ice sheets on Mars.
That same year, Italian scientists from Roma Tre University confirmed the existence of a group of underground lakes located 4,600 feet beneath ice near the south pole of Mars.
Further studies in 2022 by MIT scientists and in 2023 by the Royal Astronomical Society, revealed even more evidence.
The MIT scientists stated that they believe that the presence of ammonia could make alien life a possibility in the clouds of Venus by neutralizing the sulphuric acid in the atmosphere.
“Life could be making its own environment on Venus,” read their report.
“I think it’s only a matter of time until we have proof that it’s in the Solar System,” Thaller said in her presentation at Artechouse.
“But that’s the thing, we’re waiting until there’s nothing else it could possibly be because can you imagine the kind of trouble we’d get in.”
That being said, the NASA scientist added, “Do I think there’s life out there? Absolutely.”