Astronaut predicts that alien life will be found in the next five years

One of the most prominent astronauts of recent years, Tim Peake, has spoken about the chances of alien life existing out in space – and he believes it’s more likely than you might think.

Peake, who was posted on the International Space Station in 2015 with the European Space Agency in 2015, said there is “absolutely” alien life out there.

The 52-year-old Brit said he believes the universe is “teeming with life” but argued that we may struggle to ever reach out given the vastness of space.

Peake was asked on the Travel Diaries whether he thought alien life would be in the form of microorganisms or in the form of sentient beings.

Tim Peake is confident intelligent life is out thereGetty

He said: “I think both. I think walking, talking, conscious, intelligent life is going to be far more rare than life in general.

“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.”

Peake went on to say: “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.”

The astronaut went on to say: “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.”

Peake went on to say: “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.

“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?”

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