A 10-year, $100 million initiative to boost the search for extraterrestrial intelligence will feature "the most powerful, comprehensive, and intensive scientific search ever undertaken for signs of intelligent life beyond Earth," the initiative's organizers promised in an announcement today.
"Breakthrough Initiatives" is being bankrolled by billionaire tech investor Yuri Milner and led by a distinguished cast of scientists including Astronomer Royal Martin Rees and astronomer Frank Drake, who is Chairman Emeritus of the SETI Institute. (In 1960, Drake became the first person to set up a radio telescope to detect interstellar radio transmissions, and he formulated the Drake equation the year following.) Stephen Hawking was on stage at today's launch event, saying, “In an infinite Universe, there must be other life. There is no bigger question. It is time to commit to finding the answer," Nature reported.
The money will provide "significant access to two of the world’s most powerful telescopes," the 100-meter Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and the 64-meter Parkes Telescope in New South Wales, Australia, the official announcement said. “We would typically get 24–36 hours on a telescope per year, but now we’ll have thousands of hours per year on the best instruments,” said Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center, according to Nature. “It’s difficult to overstate how big this is. It’s a revolution.”
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