http://ca.news.yahoo.com/russian-scientists-expect-meet-aliens-2031-145615642.html
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian scientists expect humanity to encounter alien
civilizations within the next two decades, a top Russian astronomer
predicted on Monday.
"The genesis of life is as inevitable as the formation of atoms...
Life exists on other planets and we will find it within 20 years,"
Andrei Finkelstein, director of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Applied
Astronomy Institute, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying.
Speaking at an international forum dedicated to the search for
extraterrestrial life, Finkelstein said 10 percent of the known planets
circling suns in the galaxy resemble Earth.
If water can be found there, then so can life, he said, adding that
aliens would most likely resemble humans with two arms, two legs and a
head.
"They may have different color skin, but even we have that," he said.
Finkelstein's institute runs a program launched in the 1960s at the
height of the Cold War space race to watch for and beam out radio
signals to outer space.
"The whole time we have been searching for extraterrestrial
civilizations, we have mainly been waiting for messages from space and
not the other way," he said.
Jan Rasmussen