If NASA found life outside of our planet, would they tell us?

We know of only one living planet: our own. But we know it very well. As we move to the next stage in the search for alien life, the effort will require the expertise of planetary scientists, heliophysicists and astrophysicists. read more

Finding life outside the solar system is extremely difficult, and even if we had solid evidence that there is, it would still be extremely questionable as a means of communication would not exist, because the planets of our civilization and the newly discovered intelligent life's would be light years apart. read more

It's probable, they say, that life could have arisen on at least some of the billions of planets thought to exist in our galaxy alone -- just as it did here on planet Earth. Many scientists believe we are not alone in the universe. read more

From the left to right, the Spitzer, Kepler, and Hubble space telescopes have discovered over 1,000 planets outside our solar system. Credit: JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC); NASA Ames/ W. Stenzel; ESA Still, it’s hard to keep a good spacecraft down. read more