On Monday, world-famous theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking announced the launch of a new project to track alien life forms over the next decade, worth $ 100 million.
This initiative, sponsored by the American billionaire Yuri Milner, is called “Breakthrough Listen”. It will use the “Silicon Valley method”, which combines the use of two radio telescopes and the intellectual power of social networks. The founder of SETI, Frank Drake, who previously began searching for alien intelligence using Project Ozm in 1960, was also present during Hawking's statement, along with other astronomers.
“Perhaps somewhere in space, another intelligent life sees our signals and tries to unravel their meaning,” said Hawking. "Or our signals are lost in lifeless space, like invisible beacons, signaling that there is a place on earth rock where the Universe found its existence? In any case, there is no more important question and it is time to answer - it's time to find life beyond Earth . "We are alive, we are intelligent, we must know."
According to the announced project, it will be the most large-scale scientific search for intelligent extraterrestrial life. According to BBC News, a portion of the sky will be examined 10 times more than the previous programs, the spectrum of radio frequencies for monitoring will be 5 times wider, and the speed of data processing will increase 100 times. "Breakthrough Listen" is the first stage of the mission. The next stage, called "Breakthrough Message", will be to announce a competition for the best writing of the message on behalf of all the inhabitants of the Earth and then send it to other civilizations.
Green Bank Telescope telescopes in West Virginia and Parkes Telescope in New South Wales, Australia, will receive data, and the world community project "Breakthrough Listen" offers to take part in the project "the SETI @ home project" using special software to combine capacity computers around the world via the Internet.
