Title: Is there life on other planets? – Exoplanet Exploration: Planets Beyond our Solar System
Headings: Is there life on other planets?
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Is there life on other planets?
Are We Alone?
How is NASA searching for life in the universe?
Among Trillions of Planets, Are We 'Home Alone?'
Life in the Universe: What are the Odds?
What's Out There? The Exoplanet Sky So Far
Life in Our Solar System? Meet the Neighbors
The Searchers

Content: Is there life on other planets? – Exoplanet Exploration: Planets Beyond our Solar System
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Is there life on other planets? The ultimate goal of NASA's exoplanet program is to find unmistakable signs of current life on a planet beyond Earth. How soon that can happen depends on two unknowns: the prevalence of life in the galaxy and how lucky we get as we take those first, tentative, exploratory steps. MIT astronomer Sara Seager, is a McArthur Genius Fellow and leader in the scientific race to find another Earth in the near future. Our early planet finding missions, such as NASA’s Kepler and its extended incarnation, K2, or the coming James Webb Space Telescope, could yield bare bones evidence of the potentially habitable worlds. James Webb, designed in part to investigate gas giants and super Earths, might find an outsized version of our planet. NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope or the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope, could zero in on a distant planet’s reflected light to detect the signatures of oxygen, water vapor, or some other powerful indication of possible life.