Martin Rees, president of the Royal Astronomical Society of the United Kingdom, said that “with the advance of technology, for the first time we have realistic hopes of detecting planets somewhat smaller than Earth orbiting other stars.”
At a conference on the discovery of extraterrestrial life, held in London, Rees added: “We will be able to discover whether these planets have continents and oceans, and knowing what kind of atmosphere they have.”
He also said: “While getting to know if there is life on any of them will be a long shot, it is a tremendous progress being able to obtain images of Earthlike planets,”; “even if we found less developed forms of life, it would became one of the great discoveries of the century”.
And Ress finished saying “I suspect that there may be life out there in ways that we can not even conceive. And there may be, of course, forms of intelligence beyond human capacity.”
