Other life elsewhere?

This is the question that's on everyone's mind. Right at this moment, the Phoenix Lander is scooping up ice from the Mars polar region. It's from that ice, scientists will determine if Mars was once life sustaining, and if so, could it harness life itself?

The image above is one of my favorite images taken by the Space Telescope Hubble. Just the vastness of space is unimaginable. This image was taken back in 1995 and 1998 (it's a composite of two separate images). The Hubble's shutter was held open for 1 million seconds; long enough time to let even the faintest of light hit its lens. It's estimated to hold around 10,000 galaxies in this small slice of space alone. If you attempted to view the same spot from earth, even with a powerful scope, this portion of space would be mainly black. Because Hubble doesn't have the atmospheric disturbances that we have here on earth, it can surprise us with images such as this. And more so, from earth, this portion of space would only encompass an area roughly 1/10th the size of the moon! This is like a grain of sand from all the sand on the earth.

Personally, I totally believe that the possibility exists for life elsewhere in space. It's gotta be like winning the lottery? There has to be a 1 in 100 billion chance. I find the Phoenix mission very exciting, and hope that we learn a good deal from this endeavor. Who knows... maybe we will be making some new friends as well!