Stephen Hawking, Russian billionaire launch search for extraterrestrials

[ArsalanKhan21]

Searching for ET: Stephen Hawking, Russian billionaire launch search for extraterrestrials


Searching for ET: Stephen Hawking, Russian billionaire launch search for extraterrestrials
Gregory Katz, The Associated Press 07.19.2015

Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking sits in front of a presentation image during a press conference in London, Monday, July 20, 2015. Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking and Russian tech entrepreneur Yuri Milner are pushing the search for extraterrestrial life into higher gear. The pair said Monday the $100 million "Breakthrough Initiatives" program funded by Milner will harness computer power as never before in a search of the heavens. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

LONDON - Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has joined a Russian billionaire to launch a major new effort to listen for aliens in the search for extraterrestrial life.

Hawking has offered his support to tech entrepreneur Yuri Milner's Breakthrough Initiatives project — a $100 million quest to see if extraterrestrial intelligence exists. Milner, who made a fortune through investments in companies like Facebook, said the power and innovation of Silicon Valley could be harnessed to search the entire Milky Way and 100 nearby galaxies.

"There is no bigger question," Hawking said, using a computer-generated voice to communicate because of his motor neurone disease. "It is time to commit to finding the answer to search for life beyond Earth."

As well as using some of the world's most powerful telescopes, the Breakthrough Listen project will support SETI@home, a University of California, Berkeley computing platform. The project will harness computer power, having 9 million volunteers working in tandem by donating spare computing power to a worldwide network, scanning the skies and looking for life — creating one of the biggest supercomputers in the world.

The researchers say the focused computing power and the use of some of the world's most powerful telescopes will allow them to collect in one day the same amount of data that would have taken one year to collect before the program began.

"The scope of our search will be unprecedented — a million nearby stars, the galactic centre the entire plane of the Milky Way and 100 nearby galaxies," Milner said.

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

Milner plans to back the program for at least 10 years although scientists agree it may take longer to find proof that alien life exists.

Hawking said it is time for questions to be answered.

"We are intelligent, we are alive, we must know," said Hawking.

 

[Ussaid]

Meanwhile, in South Asia women burned alive for being a witch

 

[PDF]

i firmly believe, "No intelligent life exists outside planet Earth."

 

[Hamid Khattak]

He doesn't need to go out of space to find Aliens...He should visit India... :p

 

[livingdead]

He doesn't need to go out of space to find Aliens...He should visit India... :p

come before we deport them to bd.

 

[Xzok0]

Exciting times ahead

 

[Devil Soul]

Hawking launches biggest-ever search for alien life
Last Updated On 21 July,2015 About 2 hours ago

It will be intensive scientific search undertaken for signs of extra-terrestrial intelligent life
LONDON (AFP) - British cosmologist Stephen Hawking launched Monday the biggest-ever search for intelligent extraterrestrial life in a 10-year, $100-million (92-million-euro) project to scan the heavens.

Russian Silicon Valley entrepreneur Yuri Milner, who is funding the Breakthrough Listen initiative, said it would be the most intensive scientific search ever undertaken for signs of extra-terrestrial intelligent life.

"In an infinite universe, there must be other occurrences of life. Somewhere in the cosmos, perhaps, intelligent life may be watching," Hawking said at the launch event at the Royal Society science academy in London.

"Either way, there is no bigger question. It s time to commit to finding the answer, to search for life beyond Earth. We must know."

The project will use some of the biggest telescopes on Earth, searching far deeper into the universe than before for radio spectrum and laser signals.

"We are launching the most comprehensive search programme ever," said Milner.

"Breakthrough Listen takes the search for intelligent life in the universe to a completely new level."

He said the scan would collect more data in one day than a year of any previous search, tracking the million closest stars, the centre of the Milky Way and the 100 closest galaxies.

"We should not read too much into the lack of confirmed signals," said the former physics student, who is named after Yuri Gagarin, the first man in outer space.

Earth s telescopes would be able to detect a signal from similarly-advanced technology sent from the centre of the Milky Way.

A signal from Andromeda, the nearest major galaxy, would need only the power of two times the Three Gorges Dam in China to reach Earth.

"We don t need to assume that civilisation is way more developed than we are," Milner said.



- Huge gamble, colossal pay-off -



Martin Rees, Britain s astronomer royal and one of the project leaders, said modern technology allowed much more sensitive searches than ever before, though he cautioned against expectations of finding intelligent alien life.

"It s a huge gamble, of course, but the pay-off would be so colossal... even if the chance of success is small," the astrophysicist said.

However, the possibility of finding life had effectively risen a billionfold through the identification of billions of Earth-like planets in the Milky Way, he said.

"Is there life out there? We may not answer it but this gives a bigger chance that it may be answered in our lifetime," he said.

The programme will be 50 times more sensitive than previous searches, and cover 10 times more of the sky, experts said.

It will scan at least five times more of the radio spectrum, and 100 times faster, while in tandem undertake the deepest and broadest-ever search for optical laser transmissions.

The initiative was launched on the 46th anniversary of the first manned Moon landing.

It is allied with the Breakthrough Message project, an international competition to create digital messages that represent humanity.

There is no commitment to send any messages into space, and the project should spark discussion about whether humans should be sending messages at all out into the void.