WASHINGTON, D.C., USA — For years, one age-old question about space has persevered: Do aliens exist?
We're not talking about the green beings that have spanned cartoons and memes but rather about the potential for extraterrestrial life on another planet.
It's a question NASA astrobiology expert Dr. Lindsay Hays finds interesting and says experts "have been trying to understand and explore and figure out for a really long time."
While scientists have not yet discovered life on another planet, Hays says that doesn't mean it isn't possible given that we've only just skimmed the surface.
A vast solar system with unexplored moons and the potential for undiscovered exoplanets begs the fact that extraterrestrial life could be light-years away — we just don't know it yet.
"We can't yet say for sure whether or not aliens exist. But to quote Carl Sagan 'the universe is a pretty big place if it's just us it seems like an awful waste of space,'" Hays said.
Take Mars, for example, five rovers and four landers have been sent to explore the red planet's surface, yet Hays says we've really only explored a "tiny fraction" of it. The 2020 Mars Perseverance rover is currently on a mission to locate rocks that could contain evidence of past Martian life.
As of Sept. 7, the rover collected its first successful sample that will return to Earth in the early 2030s.
Experts also believe that icy moons in the outer solar system are promising bodies to look for life since they could hold habitable subsurface oceans. Only time and further research will tell if that is the case.
That's why astrobiologists like Hays say they will keep on "exploring life in the universe."