(SPOT.ph) Top Russian astronomer Andrei Finkelstein on Monday said that his team expects humans to encounter alien civilizations within the next two decades, reports Reuters. Finkelstein, the director of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Applied Astronomy Institute, was a speaker at an international forum dedicated to the search for extra-terrestrial life.

"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," Finkelstein said. According to Reuters, his institute runs a program that was launched during the height of the 1960s Cold War space race, and watches for and beams out radio signals to and from outer space.

Finkelstein said that 10 percent of the known planets circling suns in the galaxy resemble Earth. He added that if water was present in those planets, so could other life forms. He imagined that the aliens would likely be humanoid with two arms, two legs, and a head. "They may have different color skin, but even we have that," he said.

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