This week, NASA announced that has formed a new group of experts to up the ante for its search for life.
In a release, the space agency said that it has formed NExSS, or the Nexus for Exoplanet System Science, which is a group of experts “spanning a variety of scientific fields for an unprecedented initiative dedicated to the search for life on planets outside our solar system.”
“This interdisciplinary endeavor connects top research teams and provides a synthesized approach in the search for planets with the greatest potential for signs of life,” said Jim Green, NASA’s Director of Planetary Science, in the release. “The hunt for exoplanets is not only a priority for astronomers, it’s of keen interest to planetary and climate scientists as well.”
The esteemed group will focus their attention on exoplanets, or other planets revolving around stars like our sun. NASA reports that since the Kepler space telescope was launched six years ago, “more than 1,000 exoplanets have been found, with thousands of additional candidates waiting to be confirmed.” They feel these exoplanets give us a good shot at finding other life.
The group will include Earth scientists, planetary scientists, heliophysicists and astrophysicists. The team will include experts from NASA’s various research centers, as well as universities like Berkeley, Stanford, University of Arizona, Yale and the NASA Astrobiology Institute’s Virtual Planetary Laboratory, which is based at the University of Washington.
This news comes just a few weeks after NASA officials said they were fairly positive they’d find signs of other life by 2025.
