Stephen Hawking announces search for extraterrestrial life

The Breakthrough Initiatives consists of two projects-Breakthrough Listen and Breakthrough Message, Xinhua reported.

Speaking at the launch, Hawking was quoted by the British publication saying that there is a chance that intelligent life could be watching the lights that light up earth from a far. Or do our lights wander a lifeless cosmos, unseen beacons announcing that, here on one rock, the universe discovered its existence?

“It is our responsibility as human beings to use the best equipment we have to try to answer one of the biggest questions: are we alone?”

Stephen Hawking used to think that looking for aliens was a bad idea, as he reasoned that once they knew we exist, they might be prone to wiping us out.

The project will scan 10 times more of the sky than previous searches and use technology that is 50 times more sensitive. Researchers expect to find noise in the otherwise “calm zone” that is usually concealed by the Earth’s atmosphere.

All data will be shared with the public.

Russian internet entrepreneur and billionaire Yuri Milner has announced that he will spend 0 million to look for aliens.

World-renowned scientist, Stephen Hawking, agrees and whether the answer to the question is yes or no, he feels the value in the endeavor is essential to our humanity and indefinitely worthwhile.

The Breakthrough Listen will be able to gather more data in one day than others have gathered in a full entire year’s time because the searches will be faster and more comprehensive.

Green Bank will start listening in January and Parkes will join the project around September 2016.

University of California at Berkeley astronomer Geoffrey Marcy also spoke citing the discoveries of rocky planets the correct distance from their suns to sustain water therefore life.

The program will include a survey of the 1,000,000 closest stars to Earth and beyond the Milky Way, it will listen for messages from the 100 closest galaxies.

Billions of cosmic radio channels will be scanned by engineers in addition to the nine million people who volunteer their personal computers for the SETI@home project, according Recode, which searches for communication coming from unnatural sources.