Triangle UFOs, possible alien traces on Mars, strange radioactive signals -- 2016 was a year filled with weird news about the possible existence of alien civilization somewhere in the outer space. While others dismissed them as false alarm or "mere" speculations, some experts are hopeful this could lead to the discovery of alien life in 2017.

Though the years, more and more planets get discovered by NASA especially with the advancing technology. But the search for potential super-Earths intensifies even more in 2017 with the launch of Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) which aims to observe more stars and discover exoplanets.

Dr. Simon Foster, a physicist from Imperial College London said alien life discovery might just be a matter of time. "A lot of it is just a phenomena that we haven't discovered... either way there is a breakthrough just around the corner," he told the Daily Express.

He added that the Cassini mission which is currently studying Saturn and its moons is among NASA missions, which could yield positive results about alien life. The ocean in the subsurface of Enceladus, Saturn's largest moon, has been discovered to have Earth-like properties.

"The concentration has been on Mars, and I think moons like Enceladus and Europa, there is a good prospect of finding life - microbial that is," Foster added. Cassini project scientists also believe the mission would be able to discover the habitability of Enceladus or better yet, find evidence of alien life. The Cassini mission is set to end on September 2017.

A new technology called the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which is 100 times larger than the Hubble telescope, is also set to contribute to new discoveries of alien life. The JWST will be launched by 2018 according to NASA. On the other hand, Astronomer Edgar Mitchell, who was the sixth person to walk on the moon, believes that aliens have already contacted humans several times.