Alien intelligence hunters celebrate! Russian billionaire Yuri Milner funded SETI to the tune of $100 million.
During an event at the Royal Society in London earlier today, Yuri Milner along with physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking, from the stage announced a new Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI, funding initiative that will help locate life throughout the universe.
Although several players and big names have occasionally spent time and resources to monitor electromagnetic radiation in broadcasts, today's news marks one of SETI's biggest funding in its history.
This money, and during ten years, will be used to consolidate access to telescope Parkes in Australia, and at the Green Bank Telescope located 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 contest to search for a digital message that best represents life on Earth, with a gift of 1.000.000 for the winner.
Hawking, who will be an adviser to the ambitious project, said he believes life emerged "spontaneously" on Earth, so there must be "other appearances" of life in the infinite universe.
Yuri Milner on the other hand, is known for his investments in companies technologyhigh-profile companies such as Groupon, Facebook, Flipkart, Alibaba, and Xiaomi.
