It sounds like the plot of a bad sci-fi movie, but NASA really is recruiting a priest to help prepare for humanity's contact with aliens.

No, they aren't being launched into space to fight a space demon.

NASA is hiring the help of 24 theologians as part of a plan to work out how the world's different religions would react to news about extraterrestrial life.

Amongst them is British clergyman Reverend Dr Andrew Davison, a theologian at the University of Cambridge who also holds a doctorate in biochemistry from the rival Univerity of Oxford.

The Collins dictionary says: "A theologian is someone who studies the nature of God, religion, and religious beliefs."

Why is NASA hiring religious experts now?

The reason NASA is hiring the experts now is because of advances in humanity's efforts to find life in the great unknown.