Signatures of life

the long version

Life is the greatest of all mysteries. Did it begin from a chance event, one never to be repeated in time and space, or is life on Earth just one example of a universal phenomenon that evolves wherever conditions are right? Although science could never confirm that we are a one-off miracle, it could confirm that we are part of a universal phenomenon, and this, for the last fifty years, has been the goal of astronomers who have attempted to discover life in remote regions of the universe by searching for intelligent signals from the stars.