Billionaire鈥檚 US$100m fund to find ET
Print Edition
Wondering if we are alone in the universe has engaged minds through the ages. Add to the list Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, who announced yesterday he plans to spend US$100 million to explore the idea.
Using some of the world鈥檚 largest radio telescopes, a team of scientists handpicked by Milner will oversee an initiative he calls Breakthrough Listen, a 10-year search for radio signals that could indicate the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.
鈥淚t鈥檚 the most interesting technological question of our day,鈥 Milner said in an interview, noting that he became fascinated by the notion of extra-terrestrial life after reading astrophysicist Carl Sagan鈥檚 鈥淚ntelligent Life in the Universe鈥 as a 10-year-old in Moscow.
His funds to bankroll the project came from savvy early investments in startups such as Facebook Inc.
Milner鈥檚 motivation is his belief that other civilizations could teach us how to handle challenges such as allocating natural resources. 鈥淚f we鈥檙e alone, we need to cherish what we have. The message is, the universe has no backup.鈥
Scientists said the project dwarfs anything else in the field, known as the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence. Globally, less than US$2 million annually is spent on SETI, said Dan Werthimer, an adviser to Milner鈥檚 project and the astrophysicist who directs the SETI@home project affiliated with the University of California in Berkeley.
Today, due to technology improvements, including in computing power and telescope sensitivity, US$100 million will go much farther than in the early 1990s, the last time SETI had significant funding, scientists said.
The advances allow scientists to monitor several billion radio frequencies at a time, instead of several million, and to search 10 times more sky than in the early 1990s.
Milner, creator of the Breakthrough Prize for scientific achievement, announced the initiative in London accompanied by scientists such as Stephen Hawking, the physicist and author. Hawking holds an advisory role on the project.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 娌狪CP璇侊細娌狪CP澶05050403鍙-1
- |
- 浜掕仈缃戞柊闂讳俊鎭湇鍔¤鍙瘉锛31120180004
- |
- 缃戠粶瑙嗗惉璁稿彲璇侊細0909346
- |
- 骞挎挱鐢佃鑺傜洰鍒朵綔璁稿彲璇侊細娌瓧绗354鍙
- |
- 澧炲肩數淇′笟鍔＄粡钀ヨ鍙瘉锛氭勃B2-20120012
Copyright 漏 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
