Hawking: Humans Must Spread Out in Space

Professor Stephen Hawking, left, of the University of Cambridge is accompanied by Paul Ching-wu Chu, right, President of Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, on his arrivial at the Hong Kong International Airport in Hong Kong Monday June 12, 2006. Hawking, on his six day visit in Hong Kong, is scheduled to deliver a speech at the university. ( AP Photo/Lo Sai Hung ) (Lo Sai Hung - AP)

Hawking's "work has been highly theoretical physics, not in astrophysics or global politics or anything like that," Winn added. "He is certainly stepping outside his research domain."

Hawking's comments Tuesday were reminiscent of the work of American astrophysicist Carl Sagan, who was a believer in the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence.

Sagan, a Cornell University professor and NASA-decorated scientist who died in 1996, noted that organic molecules, the kind that life on Earth is dependent on, appear to be almost everywhere in the solar system.

Sagan played a leading role in the U.S. space program, helping design robotic missions and contributing to the Mariner, Viking, Voyager and Galileo expeditions.

But his work also focused on the search for habitable worlds and intelligent life beyond the solar system, as well as theories about life's origins, ideas popularized in his best-selling 1985 novel, "Contact," which was made into a film starring Jodie Foster.

At Tuesday's news conference, Hawking said he too was venturing into the world of fiction. He plans to team up with his daughter, 35-year-old journalist and novelist Lucy Hawking, to write a children's book about the universe aimed at the same age group as the Harry Potter books.

"It is a story for children, which explains the wonders of the universe," said Lucy Hawking. They did not provide further details.

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Associated Press Writer Katie Fretland in London contributed to this report.