Question: I like the kind of science that you do about space and all and am very interested in what you do. do you think there is alien life on other planets or not? and are there any other planets that is in the habitable zone? also we have the same favourite food :)

Sam Lawrence answered on 14 Nov 2019:

Thanks for your question. I believe that there is life somewhere else in the Universe because of how large it is. Statistically it would be incredibly fluky if we were the only place in the entire universe (46 billion light years in radius) to host life. There is probably a full spectrum of alien life, ranging from single celled organisms to more complex intelligent aliens! However, we are yet to find any evidence suggesting this. We do know however, that water can form elsewhere, in the Orion nebula for example, enough water is produced to form Earth’s oceans 60 times over every day! Since we are 60% water, this is a weak indication that life could exist elsewhere. There are some theories that life may have originated on Earth due to contamination by an asteroid. The asteroid could have carried simple life and infected the Earth with it. Tardigrades are a type of micro-animal that are known to survive in space; perhaps something like this could have travelled to Earth from someplace in outer space! P.S. curry is amazing, I made a great one last night 😛