This March 7, 2011 file image provided by NASA shows the International Space Station. The six space station astronauts took shelter in lifeboats Tuesday, June 28, 2011, when a piece of orbiting junk came dangerously close. The unidentified object came within 1,100 feet of the space station — closer than any piece of space junk ever, said NASA's space operations chief, Bill Gerstenmaier.(Agencies)

Russian scientists expect humanity to encounter alien civilizations within the next two decades, a top Russian astronomer predicted on Monday.

"The genesisof life is as inevitable as the formation of atoms... Life exists on other planets and we will find it within 20 years," Andrei Finkelstein, director of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Applied Astronomy Institute, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying.

Speaking at an international forum dedicated to the search for extraterrestriallife, Finkelstein said 10 percent of the known planets circling suns in the galaxy resemble Earth.

If water can be found there, then so can life, he said, adding that aliens would most likely resemble humans with two arms, two legs and a head.

"They may have different color skin, but even we have that," he said.

Finkelstein's institute runs a program launched in the 1960s at the height of the Cold War space race to watch for and beam out radio signals to outer space.

"The whole time we have been searching for extraterrestrial civilizations, we have mainly been waiting for messages from space and not the other way," he said.

(Read by Lee Hannon. Lee Hannon is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)

俄羅斯一位權威天文學家周一預測，在未來二十年內，人類將能和外星人相遇。

俄羅斯國際文傳電訊社引述俄社會科學院應用天文學研究所負責人安德烈芬克爾斯坦的話說：“生命起源猶如原子的形成一樣不可避免……其他星球上也存在生命，我們會在20年內找到它。”

芬克爾斯坦在一個以外星生命探索為主題的國際論壇上表示，銀河系中繞恒星公轉的已知行星中，有10%的行星與地球類似。

他指出，如果能在這些星球上找到水源，就可以找到生命。他還說，外星人很可能與人類相似，有兩只胳膊，兩條腿，一個腦袋。

他說，“他們可能有不同的膚色，但我們也如此。”

芬克爾斯坦所在的研究所在20世紀60年代冷戰時期的太空競賽高峰期發起了一個向外太空收發無線電信號的計劃，該計劃目前還在進行中。

他說道：“一直以來我們都在搜尋外星文明，不過基本上除了等待來自外太空的信息外，我們還別無他法。”

來源：中國日報   編輯：許銀娟