There's plenty of real estate where life could exist," said Douglas Vakoch, president of the nonprofit Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI) in San Francisco."We are right now on the verge of finding out whether there is life elsewhere in the universe, and there are three ways we could find it. Think of it as a three-way horse race to find ET," Vakoch said.But will any of the horses cross the finish line in 2020?It all depends on the prevalence of life beyond Earth, Vakoch said, and the number of targets we can scan with available technologies — whether these instruments are located in Earth-based observatories, in space-based telescopes or in craft that travel to other planets and moons in our solar system, Vakoch told Space.com.