Swiss scientist made history: Aliens can be found in 25 years

According to the news in The Independent, Swiss astrophysicist Sascha Quanz believes that humanity will be able to find evidence of life outside our Solar System in the next 25 years.

Speaking at a press briefing on September 2, Dr. Quanz cited new technology under development at Switzerland's federal institute of technology ETH Zurich, existing technologies such as the James Webb Space Telescope, and the progress science has made in exploring more than 5,000 exoplanets (planets around stars other than our Sun) as reasons for his optimism.

According to Space.com, Dr. "Success is not guaranteed. But we will learn other things along the way," said Quanz.

Dr. As an example, Quanz cited the release on September 1 of the first direct image of the gas giant exoplanet HIP 65426, recorded by the Webb Telescope.

"The [HIP 65426] system is a very special one," the scientist said.

"It's a giant planet orbiting very far from the star. That's what Webb can do to take pictures of planets. We won't be able to reach minor planets. Webb isn't strong enough to do that."

Dr. Quanz and his colleagues at ETH Zurich are working on a mid-infrared imager and spectroscopy instrument designed for the Extremely Large Telescope currently under development by the European Southern Observatory in Chile. When the telescope is opened, it will be the largest ground-based telescope with a mirror of about 40 meters in diameter, and together with the device under development at ETH Zurich, it will be able to study exoplanets that the Webb Telescope cannot examine.

Dr. "The device's primary purpose is to take the first picture of a potentially Earth-like terrestrial planet around one of the closest stars. But our long-term vision is to do this for dozens of stars, not just a few stars, and probe the atmospheres of dozens of terrestrial exoplanets," said Quanz.

The astrophysicist is also at the Center for the Origin and Expansion of Life, ETH Zurich's new initiative, announced Sept. One of the directors of (Centre for Origin and Prevalence of Life).