The question of whether or not we are alone in the the universe is one of the oldest in science. Since man first realized that the stars in the sky were all other suns people have wondered whether they might contain life.

Chances are that somewhere out there other intelligent species exist. Even if life is unlikely to occur on a planet and difficult for life to survive, with billions of stars in our Galaxy and billions of planets orbiting those stars the odds of intelligent life existing somewhere are pretty good.

At a public talk held on July 14 at NASA Headquarters in Washington, experts outlined the process NASA is using and plans to use to search for extraterrestrial life.

“Sometime in the near future, people will be able to point to a star and say, ‘that star has a planet like Earth. Astronomers think it is very likely that every single star in our Milky Way galaxy has at least one planet,” says Sara Seager, professor of planetary science and physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in a statement.

Currently the process of searching for inhabited planets begins with ground based observations. Once a candidate star is found space based telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Kepler Space Telescope are employed.

With these telescopes, researchers can determine whether or not a star has orbiting planets. They can also determine the distance of the planets from their star and whether or not any of the planets are in the right location to have liquid water on the surface.

In the coming years NASA will add even more powerful telescopes such as the Transiting Exoplanet Surveying Satellite (TESS) in 2017, the James Webb Space Telescope (Webb Telescope) in 2018 and, early in the next decade, the Astrophysics Focused Telescope Assets (WFIRST-AFTA).

Since the launch of Kepler in 2009, 5000 potential exoplanets have been found and 1700 have been confirmed. The new telescopes will allow for the discovery of even more planets and will allow scientists to search the atmosphere of exoplanets for water vapor, carbon and other elements that might indicate life in their atmospheres.

“This technology we are using to explore exoplanets is real. The James Webb Space Telescope and the next advances are happening now. These are not dreams — this is what we do at NASA,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

In the last decade, numerous ‘super Earths’ have been discovered. Those are rocky planets that are much larger and more dense than the Earth. Super Earth’s are unlikely to have intelligent life, as we know it.

Finding habitable planets more similar to Earth is more difficult. The smaller, less dense planets produce fainter signals and are more difficult to detect. The more advanced telescopes being developed may have a better chance of finding planets that are, more or less, exactly like Earth.

“It is going to take a continuing partnership between NASA, science, technology, the U.S. and international space endeavors, as exemplified by the James Webb Space Telescope, to build the next bridge to humanity’s future. Just imagine the moment, when we find potential signatures of life. Imagine the moment when the world wakes up and the human race realizes that its long loneliness in time and space may be over — the possibility we’re no longer alone in the universe,” says Matt Mountain, director and Webb telescope scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.

A video of the conference is available on NASA’s YouTube channel. Additional information about the search for life in the universe can be found at astrobiology.nasa.gov and the nonprofit organization Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI).