Ellen Stofan Quotes

If few worlds have microbial life, it dramatically reduces the chances that more complex organisms exist.

There's no doubt that the search for planets is motivated by the search for life. Humans are interested in whether or not life evolves on other planets. We'd especially like to find communicating, technological life, and we look around our own solar system, and we see that of all the planets, there's only one that's inhabited.

There may be aliens in our Milky Way galaxy, and there are billions of other galaxies. The probability is almost certain that there is life somewhere in space.

Life outside of Earth is probably going to be really hard to find.

I think Pluto has to be considered among the places in the solar system that are possible homes for life.

As far as I'm concerned, Enceladus has become the go-to place in our solar system for issues bearing on extraterrestrial life. It's a great place to examine extraterrestrial organic chemistry that is water-based and, therefore, like biotic chemistry on Earth.

Water-based life is very much an Earth-centric view, and we can push the envelope on that here in our own solar system. We have the methane seas of Titan.

Should we find a second form of life right here on our doorstep, we could be confident that life is a truly cosmic phenomenon. If so, there may well be sentient beings somewhere in the galaxy wondering, as do we, if they are not alone in the universe.

I am absolutely certain that life can exist in outer space, move around, find a new aqueous environment.

I think there must be some other life forms, even if they're microscopic.

I believe alien life is quite common in the universe, although intelligent life is less so. Some say it has yet to appear on planet Earth.

We're going to understand that there is life on other bodies in the solar system.

The universe is large and old, and the ingredients for life as we know it are everywhere, so there's no reason to think that Earth would be unique in that regard. Whether of not the life became intelligent is a different question, and we'll see if we find that.

People quite often think of the question 'Are we alone in the universe?' in terms of other civilizations out there: life forms that have reached at least our level of technological development.

We haven't yet found a speck of evidence for biology on another world, so we have no objective way to judge whether life is a onetime fluke or a near-inevitable phenomenon.

Theoretically, there are planets with an environment that can support life. As yet there is no evidence that there indeed is life on other planets. It's only a matter of time before we get to know.

Astrobiology is the science of life in the universe. It's an attempt to scientifically deal with the question of whether or not we're alone in the universe, looking at the past of life, the present of life, and the future of life. It's an interdisciplinary study incorporating astronomy, biology, and the Earth sciences.

Where there's water on Earth, you find life as we know it. So if you find water somewhere else, it becomes a remarkable draw to look closer to see if life of any kind is there, even if it's bacterial, which would be extraordinary for the field of biology.

I believe that there may be intelligent life on other planets.

The discovery and investigation of life on other planets is likely to change many of our ideas about how life arose on the Earth and even what is life and its natural development.

Mars still remains the astrobiology community's number one choice for 'nearest rock with life,' but there are many researchers who argue that the moons of Jupiter are better bets. In particular, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto are all thought to hide vast oceans of liquid water beneath their icy, outer skins.

I do definitely believe that there is life away from this planet. I mean, we've kind of established that with the fact that we found bacteria on meteorites, and we've kind of used that to backtrack and show how this Earth, this planet, could have formed the ability to sustain life in the first place.

The cosmos is three times as old as Earth. During most of creation's 14 billion year history, our solar system wasn't around. Nonetheless, the early universe still had the right stuff for life, and contained worlds that were just as suitable for spawning biology and intelligence as our own.

We're constantly re-evaluating the potential for life. We're finding it where we didn't think it could exist, such as volcanic vents and other extreme conditions like under arctic ice. We're finding life in these incredibly harsh and dynamic conditions, so we're having to re-evaluate our own ideas of what's possible on this planet alone.

I don't think an alien will be a blob. If aliens are out there they should have evolved just like us. They should have eyes and be walking on two legs. In short if there is any life out there then it is likely to be very similar to us.