The Biggest Search for Alien Life Launched by Stephen Hawkings

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.

Milner, who is an entrepreneur and has earned fortunes by investing in popular companies including Facebook, reportedly said he is looking to utilize Silicon Valley’s innovations to search the skies and nearby 100 galaxies for extraterrestrial life.

Mr Hawking pointed out the fact that in an infinite universe, there must be other occurrences of life and somewhere in the cosmos, the intelligent lives must be watching. Many scientists reasoned that it is very possible that there are many other planets that support life, just like how Earth supports life under its atmosphere.

Are there other life forms out there in our mystifying universe is perhaps one of the most fascinating questions we can ask ourselves and that science works endlessly to discover.

But Milner will not only spend $100, but another of the same amount will be given to a project named Breakthrough Message. The data from the initiative will be available to the public for anyone to look through and consider.

If ever the aliens decide to contact planet Earth, there’s more possibility that it’s going to be received via the NSW radio telescope that was shown in The Dish.

Milner unveiled the Breakthrough Listen initiative with physicist Stephen Hawking in a webcast from London’s Royal Society earlier today.

The Parkes telescope and observatory was built in 1961 and played a prominent role in relaying signals back to earth from the USA manned moon landing on July 20, 1969.

He said the search will be entirely transparent and will rely on open- source software so findings can be shared throughout the world. Either way, there is no better question.

“We are intelligent, we are alive, we must know”, said Hawking. But Professor Stephen Hawking warned “It might not be a good idea to send our own signals, to let our neighbors know we are around”. Beyond the Milky Way, it will listen for messages from the 100 closest galaxies.