Major Tim Peake says there is ‘absolutely’ alien life in the universe and predicts that extra-terrestrial bacterial life could be found within the next five years.
The British astronaut, 52, thinks the universe is ‘teeming with life’ but the vastness of it may cause problems with us ever making contact.
The father of two, from Chichester, East Sussex, was the last Briton to travel into space when he flew to the International Space Station (ISS) as a European Space Agency astronaut in 2015.
This week he spoke of his desire to be involved in a moon mission and also said he would love to be involved in a trip to Mars.
Speaking on the Travel Diaries podcast, Peake was asked if he pictured walking talking beings or microorganisms.
Tim Peake says there is ‘absolutely’ alien life in the universe and predicts that extra-terrestrial bacterial life could be found within the next five years
The British astronaut, 52, thinks the universe is ‘teeming with life’ but the vastness of it may cause problems with us ever making contact
‘I think both. I think walking, talking, conscious, intelligent life is going to be far more rare than life in general,’ he said.
‘I think the universe is teeming with life. If you’re in any doubt as to the vastness and the scale of the universe, just go and Google some of these James Webb space telescope shots that we’re getting now of galaxies.
‘I mean, hundreds of billions of stars in our own milky way galaxy, which is very average.
‘We think they could be up to two trillion galaxies, each with a few hundred billion stars.’
He said the scale of the universe was ‘mind-boggling’ and that we are learning water is very common throughout.
Peake said: ‘Water is all throughout our own solar system, let alone the galaxy. We know there are thousands and thousands of planets, even in our local neighbourhood around stars that we’re observing right now.
‘These planets tend to form the same pattern as our solar system, rocky ones close to the star, giant gas planets further out.
Major Peake said there are hundreds of billions of stars in our own milky way galaxy, ‘which is very average’ with it believed there are a trillion galaxies in the universe
The father of two thinks ‘walking, talking, conscious, intelligent life is going to be far more rare than life in general’
‘And actually the more common form of stars, which are red dwarves not yellow dwarves like our own sun, burn for trillions of years and so there’s far more time if you’re in a planet orbiting a red star, for life to evolve.’
He believes that there is ‘life if everywhere’ and made a bold prediction we could find ‘signs of small, microbial bacterial life form within the next possible five, 10, 15 years’.
‘We’re already seeing potential bio-signatures in the atmospheres of planets in our local vicinity which will be really exciting,’ he said
‘Intelligent life, yes – I think intelligent life is out there.
‘The problem is the vastness of the universe, just the scales we’re talking about, will we ever make contact?’
Peake revealed in October that he was going to quit his retirement in order to lead the UK’s first astronaut mission.
He will lead the crew of four on a £200million project to the International Space Station with the mission being funded by Axiom.
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