NASA offers fellowships to search for aliens

Daniel Trotta, Reuters
Published: Friday, September 05, 2008
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, famous for its manned missions to the moon, announced the creation of the Carl Sagan Postdoctoral Fellowships in Exoplanet Exploration on Wednesday.

The fellowship is named after the late astronomer who popularized science through his books and television appearances.

The fellows will search for life on planets outside our solar system, the so-called exoplanets, more than 300 of which have been discovered since 1994.

READ ON..................

"We're learning an enormous amount," said Charles Beichman, director of NASA's Exoplanet Science Institute. "We know the rate of star formation. Ten years ago, we didn't know about the fraction of stars with planets. Now we know . . . 10 per cent have Jupiters and in a few years we'll know about Earths.

"How many of those worlds have life? That's a slightly longer-term question, but is absolutely something that 21st century science can accomplish," he said.

Now that's an attitude thats more like it!!!!!!!!!!!!