Is there anybody out there? For centuries humans have wondered although the ways in which we have gone about this have varied. As we have gained a greater understanding of the universe, our searches have taken on more concrete（具体的） forms. Questions about aliens （外星人） have become a subject for science rather than science fiction.
Now new cooperation between the Very Large Array （ VLA ） observatory in New Mexico and the SETI Institute in California means that our curiosity about whether aliens exist can be closer than ever before to being satisfied. Data from the VLA'S 28 radio telescopes, used to scan a vast area of sky, will be fed through a special supercomputer that will search for distant signals.
How likely it is that a signal will be found, and what this might mean, are hard questions to answer. SETI's existing projects have not discovered any signals from other planets so far. But recent discoveries in space and Earth sciences have provided some encouragement for those who are enthusiastic about the possibility, however remote, of detecting other civilizations.
Once it was thought that our solar system could be unique. Since the discovery of the first exoplanet （a planet beyond the solar system ） in the 1990s, thousands more have been located. Around one in five stars is now thought to have a planet in their orbit（运行轨道） in a so-called "habitable（适合居住的） zone"—that is, at a distance from the star where the temperature means that life is theoretically possible.
Are Earth's 7.5 billion humans, along with billions of other animals and plants they share their home with, on their own in the universe? If there is another life form somewhere, could it be as intelligent as humans? Or could it threaten them? I think all of these need further exploration. As explorations of Mars continue, and a new set of observations from the James Webb Space Telescope are set to begin, our interest in the possibility of alien life appears as much as before.
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