Humans may encounter aliens within next 20 years: Russian scientists

Russian scientists have predicted that human beings will encounter alien civilisations within the next two decades.

According to the Interfax news agency, the astronomers also expect that the aliens would most likely resemble humans with two arms, two legs and a head.

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

Speaking at an international forum dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial life, Finkelstein added that 10 per cent of the known planets circling the suns in the galaxy resemble the Earth.

Based on that fact, the astronomer said that if water can be found there, then so can life.

As far as resembling humans is concerned, he said: "they may have different colour skin, but even we have that."