Hunters of extraterrestrial intelligence are celebrating! Russian billionaire Yuri Milner has funded SETI with $100 million.
During an event at the Royal Society in London earlier today, Yuri Milner, along with physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking, announced on stage a new Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI, funding initiative that will help detect life throughout the universe.
Although several agencies and big names have dedicated time and resources to monitoring electromagnetic radiation in transmissions over time, today's news marks one of the largest funding grants SETI has received in its history.
This money, over a period of ten years, will be used to consolidate access to the Parkes Telescope in Australia, and the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. This access is largely restricted to SETI scientists, as these radio telescopes are in high demand throughout the wider astronomical community. In fact, scientists will have thousands of additional hours each year to use the telescopes.
To help raise public awareness, the project will organize a competition to find a digital message that best represents life on Earth, with a prize of $1,000,000 for the winner.
Hawking, who will be an advisor to the ambitious project, said he believes life emerged "spontaneously" on Earth, and so in the infinite universe there should be "other manifestations" of life.
Yuri Milner, on the other hand, is known for his investments in high-profile technology companies, such as Groupon, Facebook, Flipkart, Alibaba, and Xiaomi.
