Strong indications of life beyond Earth within a decade, definitive evidence within 2 to 3 decades. Interesting. She goes on to say this will probably be microbes, not little green men. So said Ellen Stofan, NASA Chief Scientist.
Still seems like wishful thinking, but it would be pretty cool.
Sounds reasonable, since if we pick up traces of free oxygen on an extrasolar planet, life is very likely the cause.
The newspaper headlines on this made it sound like little green men, though. Which was wrong.
There was a report years ago that the Sun was 200 Kelvins or so cooler than thought. The newspaper I delivered had a headline, in larger type than the Pearl Harbor bombing: “SUN IS COOLING OFF”. My 1969 calculator hadn’t enough digits to calculate the percent difference. 
Isn’t that about 7%? I mean, come on, that’s off the top of your head, right?
What a useless thing for a scientist to claim. If there was any reason to declare something to be definitive, it would no longer be a prediction but an observation. Just some asshole hoping to get ahead of the curve so later can be all “SEE I TOLD YOU” if it does turn out to be the case.
Well, no; it’s far more likely this is a “hey, give us more money!” cash grab than a pure ego trip.
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