Pulitzer Prize finalist Dave Eggers says a trip to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory convinced him we’ll find evidence of life on another planet within just 25 years — and it will likely be on an exoplanet. Eggers, who visited the Southern California facility in June, credits future accomplishments expected with the 2027 launch of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope . The telescope will have a field of view at least 100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope, and the ability to block starlight to directly see exoplanets: planets outside of our solar system that orbit a star.
Eggers says this function, being able to block rays of a faraway star to see behind and around it, will be the key. “To recap: For thousands of years, humans have wondered whether life is possible elsewhere in the universe, and now we’re within striking distance of being able to say not only yes , but here ,” he wrote in a lengthy opinion piece published Tuesday in The Washington Post . To date, astronomers have found and “confirmed” more than 5,000 exoplanets, out of the billions in our galaxy.
But, there are thousands of others considered to be “candidates.” Further observations are needed to know whether or not the exoplanets are real. The first exoplanets were discovered in the 1990s.
Scientists are looking for exoplanets that might support light in the Goldilocks zone, in which planets are closer to a star. To help find them, they will use a tiny tool called a coronagraph :.