NASA’s top scientists have reached out to the scientific community saying that they need a plan in place for when we find evidence of alien life. James Green, the agency’s chief scientist, co-authored a new article that urges researchers to create a framework for reporting evidence of extraterrestrial life. The article has been published in the journal Nature.

In the article, the authors emphasized the importance of clearly communicating any evidence of alien life, as well as establishing clear expectations for the public whenever it happens.

CoLD scale to evaluate evidence

“As life-detection objectives become increasingly prominent in space sciences, it is essential to open a community dialogue about how to convey information in a subject matter that is diverse, complicated, and has a high potential to be sensationalized,” read the paper.

Green and other authors propose confidence of life detection (CoLD) scale that will help evaluate any evidence that might have been found. The scale itself features seven levels, where each level represents a benchmark that must be met before we can move to the next step.

For instance, level one involves discovering life signatures like biological molecules. The second level would rule out that the sign of life is the result of the contamination on our planet. Eventually, the scale will end on the final step where scientists will declare that they have found extraterrestrial life for sure

Such discoveries aren’t far

“Having a scale like this will help us understand where we are in terms of the search for life in particular locations, and in terms of the capabilities of missions and technologies that help us in that quest,” Green said in a NASA news release. 

The authors also stress that the CoLD scale is just a start for a bigger discussion with scientists and science communicators about the best ways to move forward when we find alien life. With the most powerful James Webb Space Telescope embracing the skies and Perseverance Mars rover hunting for signs of ancient microbial life, such findings might not be far.

“The search for life beyond Earth requires broad participation from the scientific community and many kinds of observations and experiments,” said Mary Voltek, co-author of the study. “Together, we can be stronger in our efforts to look for hints that we are not alone.”