Tim Peake: Absolutely alien life is out there
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The universe is teeming with alien creatures, which could be discovered within years, Tim Peake has said.
The last British astronaut to make it into space said he thinks the universe has other life forms in all its corners. Peake, 52, predicted the extra-terrestrial finding of bacterial life form will be made within half a decade.
He told the Travel Diaries podcast he believes there is “absolutely” alien life out there.
Asked if he pictured walking talking beings or microorganisms, he said: “I think both. I think walking, talking, conscious, intelligent life is going to be far more rare than life in general.
“I think the universe is teeming with life. If you’re in any doubt as to the vastness and the scale of the universe, just go and google some of these James Webb space telescope shots that we’re getting now of galaxies.
“I mean, hundreds of billions of stars in our own milky way galaxy, which is very average.
“We think they could be up to two trillion galaxies, each with a few hundred billion stars.”
‘The scale of the universe is beyond mind-boggling’
Mr Peake said that the more we are understanding about the universe, the more likely that there has to be intelligent life forms out there.
“The scale of the universe – and that’s just the observable universe – is beyond mind-boggling. The more we find about it, the more we understand about it, water is very, very common.
“Water is all throughout our own solar system, let alone the galaxy. We know there are thousands and thousands of planets, even in our local neighbourhood around stars that we’re observing right now.
“These planets tend to form the same pattern as our solar system, rocky ones close to the star, giant gas planets further out.
“And actually the more common form of stars, which are red dwarves not yellow dwarves like our own sun, burn for trillions of years and so there’s far more time if you’re in a planet orbiting a red star, for life to evolve.”
‘Will we ever make contact?’
The father of two continued: “Where I’m getting to is, I think life if everywhere.
“I think we will probably find signs of small, microbial bacterial life form within the next possible five, 10, 15 years.
“We’re already seeing potential bio-signatures in the atmospheres of planets in our local vicinity which will be really exciting.
“Intelligent life, yes – I think intelligent life is out there.
“The problem is the vastness of the universe, just the scales we’re talking about, will we ever make contact?”
