Extraterrestrial Life!

The answer to The Question of the Ages.

We are on the verge of discovering extraterrestrial life. There will be evidence or will be confirmed as early as 2008, and within 10 years at most, I think.

NASA is launching a probe to land near the north polar ice cap on Mars. The Phoenix Mission probe will dig down under the ice and hopefully retrieve samples that show signs of life.

http://www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/phoenix_water.html

Further in the future, sample return missions from Mars will probably return live bacteria, or at least fossil evidence of such bacteria.

But the discovery could come much sooner. Our ability to detect planets around other stars is increasing very quickly, and nearly 250 planets are now known outside our solar system. Our ability to analyze the light from such planets is increasing even faster, and some scientists have said they would not be surprised to detect light reflected by chlorophyll from one of these planets. Chlorophyll is only made by living cells. If we then look at the light from the planet and see that it has a nitrogen oxygen atmosphere like the Earth does, that would be nearly conclusive.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,2096474,00.html