Are we alone? We may soon find out

Rapid technological leaps forward in the last 10 years mean mankind is closer than ever before to knowing whether extra-terrestrial life exists in our galaxy, one of Britain's leading scientists said on Tuesday.

A composite image of the galaxy cluster Abell 3627 shows X-rays from Chandra in blue, optical emission in yellow and emission from hydrogen light -- known to astronomers as 'H-alpha' -- in red. The optical and H-alpha data were obtained with the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) Telescope in Chile. Galaxy clusters are collections of hundreds or even thousands of galaxies held together by gravity that are enveloped in hot gas. Image and Text Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/UVa/M. Sun et al; H-alpha/Optical: SOAR/MSU/NOAO/UNC/CNPq-Brazil/M.Sun et al.

Astronomer and President of the Royal Society (academy of science) Martin Rees said science had made enormous progress in the search for planets grouped around other distant stars - a discipline he stressed did not exist in the 1990s.

"Now we know that most of the stars, like the sun, are likely to have planetary systems around them and we have every reason to suspect that many of them have planets that are rather like our earth," Rees told Reuters in an interview.

He said great strides in space search techniques over the last decade had removed one of the big obstacles in finding other worlds, and possibly even complex life forms, in our Milky Way galaxy of 100 million stars.
Are we alone? We may soon find out

NASA Everest Trek

Back in the Base Camp we first went to the Indian Army tent as one of our trekking guides, Baldev, is good friends of the Indian Army Colonel who is leading an expedition of the Savehs, a wing of the Army. They were very accommodating and happy to talk to us. We sat in their tent for coffee and popcorn. Shortly afterwards we went to Scott Parazynski's location, the IMG (International Mountain Guides) camp. They have 20 climbers and around 40 Sherpas in their expedition, and their camp was very large with many tents. Scott showed us his personal tent as well as the gear he is using during this expedition. Scott mentioned that he has already been up and down through the Ice Fall four times and has reached as high as just above Camp 2 for his acclimatization climbs. He is looking forward to continuing his routines and eventual bid for the summit. We wish him luck.

After vising the IMG Camp, we went to a bakery tent. It was hard to believe, but this tent creates comfort foods such as apple pies, cookies, and cinnamon buns right in the heart of Base Camp. We sat in the tent talking with with Scott some more and enjoyed a few baked goods before we headed back out. The day was getting late and we had a long hike back to Lobuche ahead of us, so unfortunately we had to say goodbye to Scott. I think all of us could have stayed much longer enjoying the impressive views of the Ice Fall and Mt Everest right in front of us.
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NASA Everest Trek Blog