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DENVER – NASA’s top scientist predicts we’ll find alien life outside our planet by 2025. Tack on an additional 20-30 years and she says that life will likely be intelligent.

That sort of galactic news is huge for people who study space. At the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Space Science Content Specialist Dimitri Klebe was floored when he heard the statement.

“I thought it was a pretty big announcement. I’m surprised they would make such a bold statement,” he said.

Klebe figured it might take us a while longer to find life outside Earth, but he also believes it will eventually happen.

“It’s hard to believe life would not exist on other planets like ours,” Klebe added.

Klebe believes once the James Webb Space Telescope launches in 2018, we’ll be able to get a better view of our neighboring planets as well as some distant ones. The telescope is supposed to be the most technologically advanced telescope to explore the stars.

“The universe is about 14 billion years old. Our solar system is only 5 billion years old. So there are other systems that are older than ours,” Klebe said.