“Or do our lights wander a lifeless cosmos, unseen beacons announcing that here on our rock, the universe discovered its existence?'”. The search will be “100 times better than any previous search for intelligent life in the universe”, said Geoff Marcy, chairman of the SETI Institute, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
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“We are intelligent, we are alive, we must know”, he said.
SETI astronomers will now have more access to the world’s most powerful telescopes, new equipment to detect radio signals and lasers that aliens might use for communications, and additional staff to monitor and analyze the data. “It is important for us to know if we are alone in the dark”. According to project organizers, Breakthrough Message aims “to learn about the potential languages of interstellar communication and to spur global discussion on the ethical and philosophical issues surrounding communication with intelligent life beyond Earth“.
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.
A new venture to scan the skies for alien life just got Stephen Hawking’s backing.
Lord Martin Rees, Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics and University of Cambridge and member of the advisory committee of the initiative, said, “The search for extra-terrestrial life is the most exciting quest in 21st-century science”. They can explain the light of stars, but not the lights that shine from planet Earth. Milner is personally funding the project, called Breakthrough Listen, with $100 million over ten years. It will scan the centre of our galaxy and the entire galactic plane.
The first one is called “Breakthrough Listen“, which is set to explore the universe and look for signs of life.
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All the data collected will be open to the public, and the hardware and open-source software will be compatible with telescopes around the world so other countries and researchers can join the search. “And Breakthrough Listen is giving it a huge lift”. “The chance of finding life has risen a billionfold when we realised that Earth-like planets are not rare, but there are literally billions of them, within our own Galaxy”.
