According to a researcher from the University of Melbourne, the idea of alien life is not as far-fetched as it used to seem, thanks to remarkable discoveries over the past two decades.
While life is a special kind of complex chemistry, the elements involved are nothing special: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and so on are among the most abundant elements in the universe. Complex organic chemistry is surprisingly common.
Amino acids, just like those that make up every protein in our bodies, have been found in the tails of comets. There are other organic compounds in Martian soil.
And 6,500 light years away a giant cloud of space alcohol floats among the stars.
Habitable planets seem to be common too. The first planet beyond our Solar System was discovered in 1995. Since then astronomers have catalogued thousands.
Based on this catalogue, astronomers from the University of California, Berkeley worked out there could be as many as 40 billion Earth-sized exoplanets in the so-called ‘habitable zone’ around their star, where temperatures are mild enough for liquid water to exist on the surface.
Source: Expert reveals why the idea of alien life no longer seems like science fiction | Daily Mail Online