THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Life outside earth? Why not, asks renowned astrophysicist Jayant Narlikar. Narlikar has expressed the hope that scientists would be able to provide conclusive evidence for the presence of extra-terrestrial life in the near future.
The astrophysicist, who has been a vocal supporter of the possibility, was delivering the Space Physics Laboratory (SPL) Day lecture on 'Searches for life outside the earth' in Thiruvananthapuram.
Narlikar's talk dealt with the possibility of the existence of life outside earth and the challenges in providing experimental evidence for it through space exploration. The main challenge in detecting life in the nearest galaxy, he said, is the enormous amount of time required for travel between galaxies even with the most advanced space ship available today.
According to him, extra-terrestrial life can exist because the basic building blocks of life might be present in some of the celestial bodies in other galaxies. Narlikar also presented the results from experiments which he had conducted in collaboration with ISRO towards the search for extraterrestrial life using high altitude balloons. The three different types of bacteria detected through these experiments are so far not identified on earth. One of these bacteria is named after ISRO and is called 'Bacillus isronensis.'