Physicist, Russian Entrepreneur Ratchet Up Search For ET

The British scientist has given his backing to Yuri Milner’s Breakthrough Initiatives project, which will provide $US100 million ($135.49 million) over the next decade to those searching for extraterrestrial intelligence. “Or do our lights wander a lifeless universe?”

Hawking, speaking at the launch of Breakthrough Listen, said that aliens may have already seen us-and that detecting them may be crucial for humankind’s surival.

“With Breakthrough Listen, we’re committed to bringing the Silicon Valley approach to the search for intelligent life in the Universe”, added Milner. “We are alive, we are intelligent, we must know”, the author of “A Brief History of Time” noted.

Berkeley will begin listening for space life early next year, using two radio telescopes – one in West Virginia, which scans the Northern Hemisphere, and the other in Australia that scans the Southern Hemisphere. “It is important for us to know if we are alone in the dark”. That will lead into Breakthrough Message, which will task itself with developing the content of messages to be sent from humans to intelligent life collectives elsewhere.

Hawking has actually offered his services to back the 0 million project. It is time to commit to finding the answer to search for life beyond Earth.

CSRIO Director of Astronomy and Space Science Dr Lewis Ball told Neil Mitchell he’s thrilled to be involved in the project. Astronomers say there are more planets in the visible universe than grains of sand on all of earth’s beaches.

He said the search would be entirely transparent and would rely on open-source software so findings can be shared throughout the world.

Around a billion stars closest to Earth will be surveyed as a part of the project.

The Breakthrough Initiatives venture is said to be the biggest yet in support of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. According to Re/code, when asked if intelligent live exists beyond earth, Milner said that it was a low-probability but high-impact experiment that only private sectors could drive right now.

The search will take in a million nearby star systems, the centre of our Milky Way galaxy, and even reach out across unimaginable distances to 100 other galaxies.