Yuri Milner, a huge tech investor, will generously donate funds to the little green men initiative that has been going on for quite a while now. Physicist Stephen Hawking and astrophysicist and cosmologist Lord Martin Rees proudly communicated their support for this initiative when the announcement was made.
Milner will will invest $100 million over the next 10 years into the Breakthrough Initiative. This continuous flow of funding will give scientists the ability to use powerful technology, including some of the best telescopes on our planet.
“The idea is to bring the Silicon Valley approach to the search,” said Milner. “That means an approach to data that is transparent, that is innovative, and that uses the problem-solving power of social networks.”
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. It will probe a million nearby stars, the galactic center, 100 nearby galaxies and the entire plane of the Milky Way.
The hardware and open-source software will be compatible with telescopes around the world so other countries and researchers can join the search, and all the data collected will be open to the public as well.
When it comes to the massive, expansive universe out there, $100 million doesn’t sound like much. Regardless, it’s still a big help to existing SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) initiatives that have generally relied on small budgets.
The discovery of life outside Earth is especially timely now, according to Milner. In our galaxy alone, NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has identified billions of potentially habitable planets.
Breakthrough Listen will team up with SETI@Home, an existing platform of 9 million computers that lets citizen scientists participate in the quest by donating spare computing power. Yes — this is a real thing — and easy to do if you are passionate about discovering life beyond our planet (hopefully friendly!).
Rees says knowing whether there is intelligent life in the space surrounding our tiny little planet can help us better form our understanding of the universe.
“We may not answer it, but this gives a bigger chance that it will be answered in our lifetime,” said Rees. “[It] is an inspiration, not just to astronomers and the general public, but to biologists, because the biggest uncertainties — the origin of life — are the biological ones.”
In addition to Breakthrough Listen, Breakthrough Initiatives will fund a $1 million competition for the best digital messages to send into space — so put your thinking caps on and write something brilliant for those intelligent, little green men to discover!
“There is no bigger question. It’s time to commit to finding the answer to the search for life beyond Earth. The Breakthrough Initiative [is] making that commitment,” said Stephen Hawking, a supporter of the project. “We are alive. We are intelligent. We must know.”
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