How to stop the discovery of extra-terrestrial life from blowing out of proportion

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-10-28 02:00

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In the search for life beyond earth, we need to establish best practices for communicating about life detection according to NASA researchers, who seek to limit the possibility of results being misunderstood, and taken to mean more than what has actually been discovered. The researchers present a basic framework to begin to tackle the issue of appropriately communicating the discovery of life. They hope to start a wider discussion on the issue in order to set reasonable expectations on the early stages of research, and build public trust by making clear that false starts and dead ends are an expected and potentially productive part of the scientific process.