Submission Statement

I think the sudden acceleration in humanity's capabilities in the search for extraterrestrial life is an under-appreciated story of the 2020s. No one knows how common intelligent life with technologically advanced civilizations might be, but we can expect simple microbial life to be common.

It's conceivable, as multiple teams around the world are working on this, that we'll detect the latter by the end of this decade, and if we have some idea of its prevalence, we'll be closer to knowing more about the extent of the former.

Why can we expect that?

That would be absolutely incredible

>>Why can we expect that?

Because with current efforts it's likely by 2030 hundreds, if not thousands of nearby (100 light years) exoplanets will have had their atmosphere's scanned for biosignatures.

If microbial life is common, then you would expect it to show up at least once per 1,000 planets.

Ground and space telescopes like Spitzer, Kepler, Hubble, TESS, MAUVE and the James Webb Space Telescope are contributing to this search.

As are the TRAPPIST, TOLIMAN, Breakthrough Watch, & SPECULOOS programs.