Peter Smith, UA professor of planetary sciences and head of the Phoenix Mars Lander mission, told an audience at the University of Delaware that we'll find life outside of Earth within 10 years. He's quoted as saying, “We're ardently searching for evidence of life on our closest planet."
“At some point, we'll turn over a rock, and by gosh there it is.”
Smith was awarded the American Geographical Society's Cullum Geographical Medal at UD the night before his lecture.[photo credit, Kathy F. Atkinson/University of Delaware]