Scientists might find forms of alien life on another planet within 10 or 15 years, a British astronomer revealed.

During an interview with Futurism, Chris Impey said microbes could be discovered on a celestial body such as Jupiter's moon Europa.

"I put my money on detecting microbial life in 10 to 15 years, but not at all detecting intelligent life," said Impey, a professor at the University of Arizona.

Impey also thinks there might have been life on Mars at one point, and he did not rule out finding existing life on the Red Planet in the near future.

"If we actually get Mars rocks back here to Earth from a place that we think could have been habitable in the past, then we might find evidence of prior life," he said.

NASA is currently working with the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency to develop the James Webb Space Telescope, which is being touted as the successor to the Hubble Telescope. It is slated to launch in October 2018.

Impey told Futurism the new telescope will have the ability to determine whether microbial life on another planet can exist by measuring what's in the atmosphere.

It was announced in February that Danish astronomers discovered a star 40 light years away that has seven Earth-sized planets orbiting it.

Scientists have located more than 3,500 exoplanets, which are planets outside of our solar system.