Milky Way Galaxy, courtesy of NASA

Aliens Exist – “In Hollywood, extraterrestrials always seem to favor the grand entrance. They land on the White House lawn and implore us to end our violent ways (The Day the Earth Stood Still, 1951),” writes Andrew Romano for Newsweek.

“Right now, in fact, two unrelated alien posses are invading theaters near you: the insectoid stars of District 9, who make their presence known by parking a UFO above Johannesburg, and the hyperactive green gremlins of Aliens in the Attic, who battle a group of plucky tweens over a Midwestern rental home,” writes Romano.

“But even if E.T. exists off the silver screen, the chances that he’ll discover us any time soon are vanishingly slim (Reese’s Pieces or not). After all, projects like SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) have been waiting since 1960 for aliens to make contact—without hearing the slightest peep. The good news, however, is that some scientists are finally focusing on the other side of the equation: a series of high-tech missions designed to help us find them. And even at this early stage, the circumstantial evidence they’ve gathered has made it clear that we’re probably not alone in the universe,” writes Romano.

“Here’s what we know. In 1995, Swiss astronomers pinpointed the first-extrasolar planet. Unfortunately, it was a -giant ball of gas orbiting so close to its sun that it glowed with enough heat and radiation to vaporize even the hardiest little green men. But at least the discovery proved that planets occurred outside our own cozy solar system. A few years later, “super-Earths” started to reveal themselves—smaller, firmer, at a discrete distance from their companion stars. Although these planets are much larger and less temperate than ours, they prompted some astronomers to estimate that perhaps half of the 200 billion or so suns in the Milky Way support terrestrial, Earth-like worlds,” reports Romano.

Read Romano’s interesting article here