Is there life beyond Earth? No one knows, but most scientists think it's almost inevitable. Our Universe is incredibly extended, both in space and in time, so anything that can happen – in this case, the emergence of life – is almost bound to happen more than once. Moreover, the Universe teems with planets, and the organic building blocks of life appear to be found wherever we look. Even though we don't know precisely how the first living cells were formed, it's extremely unlikely that the process occurred just once.
Still, as yet there's no convincing evidence of life beyond Earth. But that may change in the next two decades or so with the launch of the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), a powerful future space telescope that's currently on the…
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BBC Sky at Night United Kingdom (Digital) - 1 Issue, January 2025