A visiting NASA astrophysicist says she hopes humans will discover life outside of our solar system in the next 30 years.

Natalie Batalha has been named by Time Magazine as one the 100 most influential people on earth.

The exoplanet scientist said a tiny spacecraft will for the first time visit our nearest star Alpha Centauri in the next 50 years.

"There are endeavours going on already gearing up to send a one-gram postage-sized spacecraft out to the nearest star and start to understand what's there."

She says there are around 10 billion potentially habitable planets just in the Milky Way galaxy.

LISTEN ABOVE AS NATALIE BATALHA SPOKE WITH THE MIKE HOSKING BREAKFAST