{"id":11032,"date":"2015-07-20T11:51:45","date_gmt":"2015-07-20T15:51:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=11032"},"modified":"2015-07-20T16:55:03","modified_gmt":"2015-07-20T20:55:03","slug":"100m-initiative-announced-for-the-search-for-extraterrestrial-intelligent-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=11032","title":{"rendered":"$100M initiative announced for the search for extraterrestrial intelligent life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Announcement of a major donation to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) with the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.breakthroughinitiatives.org\/\" target=\"_d\">Breakthrough Initiative<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.breakthroughinitiatives.org\/News\/1\" target=\"_blank\">Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking Announce $100 Million Breakthrough<br \/>\nInitiatives\u00a0to Dramatically Accelerate Search for<br \/>\nIntelligent Life in the Universe<br \/>\n<\/a><\/strong><em>10-year, Multi-disciplinary Search Effort Will Harness World&#8217;s Largest Telescopes <\/em><br \/>\n<em>to Mine Data from Nearest Million Stars, Milky Way and 100 Galaxies<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><span class=\"xn-location\">LONDON<\/span>, <span class=\"xn-chron\">July 20, 2015<\/span> \/PRNewswire\/<\/strong> &#8212;\u00a0Yuri Milner was joined at The Royal Society today by <span class=\"xn-person\">Stephen Hawking<\/span>, <span class=\"xn-person\">Martin Rees<\/span>, <span class=\"xn-person\">Frank Drake<\/span>, <span class=\"xn-person\">Geoff Marcy<\/span>, <span class=\"xn-person\">Pete Worden<\/span> and <span class=\"xn-person\">Ann Druyan<\/span> to announce the unprecedented <span class=\"xn-money\">$100 million<\/span> global Breakthrough Initiatives to reinvigorate the search for life in the universe.<\/p>\n<p>10-year, Multi-disciplinary Search Effort Will Harness World&#8217;s Largest Telescopes to Mine Data from Nearest Million Stars, Milky Way and 100 Galaxies<\/p>\n<p>The first of two initiatives announced today, <i>Breakthrough Listen<\/i>, will be the most powerful, comprehensive and intensive scientific search ever undertaken for signs of intelligent life beyond Earth. The second, <i>Breakthrough Message<\/i>, will fund an international competition to generate messages representing humanity and planet Earth, which might one day be sent to other civilizations.<\/p>\n<p><b>Breakthrough Listen<\/b><\/p>\n<ul type=\"disc\">\n<li>Biggest scientific search ever undertaken for signs of intelligent life beyond Earth.<\/li>\n<li>Significant access to two of the world&#8217;s most powerful telescopes \u2013 100 Meter Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in <span class=\"xn-location\">West Virginia, USA<\/span> (&#8220;Green Bank Telescope&#8221;)<sup>1<\/sup> and 64-metre diameter Parkes Telescope in <span class=\"xn-location\">New South Wales, Australia<\/span> (&#8220;Parkes Telescope&#8221;).<\/li>\n<li>50 times more sensitive than previous programs dedicated to SETI research.<\/li>\n<li>Will cover 10 times more of the sky than previous programs.<\/li>\n<li>Will scan at least 5 times more of the radio spectrum \u2013 and 100 times faster.<\/li>\n<li>In tandem with a radio search, Automated Planet Finder Telescope at Lick Observatory in <span class=\"xn-location\">California, USA<\/span> (&#8220;Lick Telescope&#8221;)<sup>2<\/sup> will undertake world&#8217;s deepest and broadest search for optical laser transmissions.<\/li>\n<li>Initiative will span 10 years.<\/li>\n<li>Financial commitment is <span class=\"xn-money\">$100,000,000<\/span>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Unprecedented scope<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The program will include a survey of the 1,000,000 closest stars to Earth. It will scan the center of our galaxy and the entire galactic plane. Beyond the Milky Way, it will listen for messages from the 100 closest galaxies. The telescopes used are exquisitely sensitive to long-distance signals, even of low or moderate power:<\/p>\n<ul type=\"disc\">\n<li>If a civilization based around one of the 1,000 nearest stars transmits to us with the power of common aircraft radar,<i>Breakthrough Listen<\/i> telescopes could detect it.<\/li>\n<li>If a civilization transmits from the center of the Milky Way, with any more than 12 times the output of interplanetary radars we use to probe the Solar System, <i>Breakthrough Listen<\/i> telescopes could detect it.<\/li>\n<li>From a nearby star (25 trillion miles away), <i>Breakthrough Listen&#8217;s <\/i>optical search could detect a 100-watt laser (energy output of normal household light bulb).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Open Data, Open Source, Open Platform<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The program will generate vast amounts of data. All data will be open to the public. This will likely constitute the largest amount of scientific data ever made available to the public. The <i>Breakthrough Listen<\/i> team will use and develop the most powerful software for sifting and searching this flood of data. All software will be open source. Both the software and the hardware used in the <i>Breakthrough Listen<\/i> project will be compatible with other telescopes around the world, so that they could join the search for intelligent life. As well as using the <i>Breakthrough Listen<\/i> software, scientists and members of the public will be able to add to it, developing their own applications to analyze the data.<\/p>\n<p><b>Crowdsourced processing power<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i>Breakthrough Listen<\/i> will also be joining and supporting SETI@home, <span class=\"xn-org\">University of California, Berkeley&#8217;s<\/span> ground breaking distributed computing platform, with 9 million volunteers around the world donating their spare computing power to search astronomical data for signs of life. Collectively, they constitute one of the largest supercomputers in the world.<\/p>\n<p><b>Breakthrough Message<\/b><\/p>\n<ul type=\"disc\">\n<li>International competition to create digital messages that represent humanity and planet Earth.<\/li>\n<li>The pool of prizes will total <span class=\"xn-money\">$1,000,000<\/span>.<\/li>\n<li>Details on the competition will be announced at a later date.<\/li>\n<li>This initiative is not a commitment to send messages. It&#8217;s a way to learn about the potential languages of interstellar communication and to spur global discussion on the ethical and philosophical issues surrounding communication with intelligent life beyond Earth.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Project Leadership<\/b><\/p>\n<ul type=\"disc\">\n<li><span class=\"xn-person\">Martin Rees<\/span>, Astronomer Royal, Fellow of <span class=\"xn-org\">Trinity College<\/span>; Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics, <span class=\"xn-org\">University of Cambridge<\/span>.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"xn-person\">Pete Worden<\/span>, Chairman, Breakthrough Prize Foundation.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"xn-person\">Frank Drake<\/span>, Chairman Emeritus, <span class=\"xn-person\">SETI Institute<\/span>; Professor Emeritus of Astronomy and Astrophysics, <span class=\"xn-org\">University of California, Santa Cruz<\/span>; Founding Director, National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center; Former Goldwin Smith Professor of Astronomy,<span class=\"xn-org\">Cornell University<\/span>.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"xn-person\">Geoff Marcy<\/span>, Professor of Astronomy, <span class=\"xn-org\">University of California, Berkeley<\/span>; Alberts SETI Chair.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"xn-person\">Ann Druyan<\/span>, Creative Director of the Interstellar Message, NASA Voyager; Co-Founder and CEO, Cosmos Studios; Emmy and<span class=\"xn-org\">Peabody<\/span> award winning Writer and Producer.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"xn-person\">Dan Werthimer<\/span>, Co-founder and chief scientist of the SETI@home project; director of SERENDIP; principal investigator for CASPER.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"xn-person\">Andrew Siemion<\/span>, Director, Berkeley SETI Research Center.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span class=\"xn-person\">Yuri Milner<\/span> said: &#8220;With <i>Breakthrough Listen<\/i>, we&#8217;re committed to bringing the Silicon Valley approach to the search for intelligent life in the Universe. Our approach to data will be open and taking advantage of the problem-solving power of social networks.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"xn-person\">Stephen Hawking<\/span> said: &#8220;I strongly support the Breakthrough Initiatives and the search for extraterrestrial life.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"xn-person\">Frank Drake<\/span> said: &#8220;Right now there could be messages from the stars flying right through the room, through us all. That still sends a shiver down my spine. The search for intelligent life is a great adventure. And Breakthrough Listen is giving it a huge lift.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve learned a lot in the last fifty years about how to look for signals from space. With the Breakthrough Initiatives, the learning curve is likely to bend upward significantly,&#8221; added <span class=\"xn-person\">Frank Drake<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"xn-person\">Ann Druyan<\/span> said: &#8220;The <i>Breakthrough Message<\/i> competition is designed to spark the imaginations of millions, and to generate conversation about who we really are in the universe and what it is that we wish to share about the nature of being alive on Earth. Even if we don&#8217;t send a single message, the act of conceptualizing one can be transformative. In creating the Voyager Interstellar Message, we strived to attain a cosmic perspective on our planet, our species and our time. It was intended for two distinct kinds of recipients &#8211; the putative extraterrestrials of distant worlds in the remote future and our human contemporaries. As we approach the Message&#8217;s fortieth anniversary, I am deeply grateful for the chance to collaborate on the <i>Breakthrough Message<\/i>, for what we might discover together and in the hope that it might inform our outlook and even our conduct on this world.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Additional information <a href=\"http:\/\/www.breakthroughinitiatives.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">www.breakthroughinitiatives.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Announcement of a major donation to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) with the\u00a0Breakthrough Initiative: Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking Announce $100 Million Breakthrough Initiatives\u00a0to Dramatically Accelerate Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe 10-year, Multi-disciplinary Search Effort Will Harness World&#8217;s Largest Telescopes to Mine Data from Nearest Million Stars, Milky Way and 100 Galaxies &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=11032\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">$100M initiative announced for the search for extraterrestrial intelligent life<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seti"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p34aWK-2RW","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12188,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=12188","url_meta":{"origin":11032,"position":0},"title":"Video: &#8220;Life in the Universe &#8211; The Breakthrough Initiatives&#8221; &#8211; Pete Worden","author":"TopSpacer","date":"February 11, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Last summer billionaire Yuri Milner announced he would fund\u00a0a\u00a0$100M initiative for the search for extraterrestrial intelligent life. The organization formed to implement the program\u00a0is called Breakthrough Initiatives\u00a0and its chairman is\u00a0Pete Worden, former director\u00a0of NASA Ames Research Center. Below is a video of an interesting and entertaining SETI Institute\u00a0talk given by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Astronomy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Astronomy","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/JLJfa-zvmHk\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12291,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=12291","url_meta":{"origin":11032,"position":1},"title":"Video: Review of SETI projects and the $100M Breakthrough Listen Initiative","author":"TopSpacer","date":"March 5, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"In this SETI Institute seminar,\u00a0Dr. Andrew Siemion, Director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center (BSRC) at the University of California, Berkeley,\u00a0gives an excellent review of SETI projects past, present, and future and includes an overview of the Breakthrough Listen Initiative, 100-million-dollar, 10-year search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Dr. Siemion will also\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Astronomy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Astronomy","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/jDT6E4SbVow\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11211,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=11211","url_meta":{"origin":11032,"position":2},"title":"Beyond the solar system: More on Breakthrough Initiative + Smallsat exoplanet finder + Fast radio burst mystery","author":"TopSpacer","date":"August 15, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Some misc. items on SETI and exoplanets: --- The Planetary Society's Planetary Radio program recently webcast two programs about the\u00a0\u00a0Breakthrough Initiative\u00a0(see earlier post), which plans to spend $10M per year for the next ten years on a search for intelligent life beyond earth. *\u00a0Ann Druyan and the Breakthrough SETI Initiatives\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Astronomy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Astronomy","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13032,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=13032","url_meta":{"origin":11032,"position":3},"title":"Video: &#8220;Frontiers in Artifact SETI: Waste Heat, Alien Megastructures &#038; Tabbys Star&#8221;","author":"TopSpacer","date":"August 13, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u00a0posted recently\u00a0about\u00a0 Tabby\u2019s Star, also known as\u00a0the \u201cAlien Megastructure Star\u201d. \u00a0In the SETI Institute seminar video below, Prof. Jason Wright of\u00a0Penn State University reviews what's known about the star and discusses the latest findings on\u00a0the star in the context of searches for \"Extraterrestrial Civilizations with Large Energy Supplies\". From the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/XEDR-G2EDRM\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8073,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=8073","url_meta":{"origin":11032,"position":4},"title":"Less giggling over searching for ET","author":"TopSpacer","date":"June 9, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The search for signs of extraterrestrial life gets fewer giggles when mentioned today in mixed company. Kathleen Toerpe , deputy CEO for Programs and Special Projects at the Astrosociology Research Institute and editor of The Journal of Astrosociology,\u00a0 writes about the growing acceptance of the search for extraterrestrial life as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Exoplanets&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Exoplanets","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?cat=46"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14679,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=14679","url_meta":{"origin":11032,"position":5},"title":"Video: &#8220;Making Contact: Jill Tarter and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence&#8221;","author":"TopSpacer","date":"July 26, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is a video of a recent SETI Institute\u00a0event highlighting the release of the book, Making Contact: Jill Tarter and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence: Jill has been a pioneer in SETI research \u2013 it has been and still is her life\u2019s work. Jill currently holds the Bernard M. Oliver\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;SETI&quot;","block_context":{"text":"SETI","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?cat=41"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=hobbyspace&l=am2&o=1&a=1681774410","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11032"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11034,"href":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11032\/revisions\/11034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}