Stephen Hawking launches biggest-ever search for alien life

Updated

British cosmologist Stephen Hawking has launched the biggest-ever search for intelligent extraterrestrial life in a 10-year, $135 million project to scan the heavens.

Russian Silicon Valley entrepreneur Yuri Milner, who is funding the Breakthrough Listen initiative, said it would be the most intensive scientific search ever undertaken for signs of extraterrestrial intelligent life.

"In an infinite universe, there must be other occurrences of life," Mr Hawking said at the launch event at the Royal Society science academy in London.

"Somewhere in the cosmos, perhaps, intelligent life may be watching.

"Either way, there is no bigger question.

"It's time to commit to finding the answer, to search for life beyond Earth. We must know."

The project will use some of the biggest telescopes on Earth, searching far deeper into the universe than before for radio spectrum and laser signals.

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner announce the Breakthrough initiative (ABC News)

"We are launching the most comprehensive search program ever," Mr Milner said.

"Breakthrough Listen takes the search for intelligent life in the universe to a completely new level."

Mr Milner said the scan would collect more data in one day than a year of any previous search, tracking the million closest stars, the centre of the Milky Way and the 100 closest galaxies.

It's a huge gamble, of course, but the pay-off would be so colossal ... even if the chance of success is small. British astronomer Martin Rees

"We should not read too much into the lack of confirmed signals," said the former physics student, who is named after Yuri Gagarin, the first man in outer space.

Earth's telescopes would be able to detect a signal from similarly-advanced technology sent from the centre of the Milky Way.

A signal from Andromeda, the nearest major galaxy, would need only the power of two times the Three Gorges Dam in China to reach Earth.

"We don't need to assume that civilisation is way more developed than we are," Mr Milner said.

Parkes Observatory in NSW to play vital role

Australia will play a crucial role in the project, with the Parkes Observatory in New South Wales signing a multi-million-dollar contract to scan radio waves for life in the cosmos.

We know there's lots of worlds out there, but whether or not there's little green men on there is something we still don't know. Professor Matthew Bailes, Swinburne University

The CSIRO will contract a quarter of the telescope's time for five years to scan for potential radio signals from galaxies beyond our reach.

Professor Matthew Bailes, from Melbourne's Swinburne University, will be the project's lead investigator at the Parkes Telescope.

"Radio waves are a very efficient way of transmitting information and it's likely that aliens, if they're into interstellar communication at all, would be using the radio part of the spectrum," he said.

"We know there's lots of worlds out there, but whether or not there's little green men on them is something we still don't know."

Cosmologist Professor Paul Davies from Arizona State University has spent his career studying the question of "what else is out there?" and is also excited by the project.

But he said there would be a number of big questions to ask if the project did find intelligent life.

"Should we respond? Who gets to speak for us? What do we do next?" he said.

"There are no easy answers to these but if we're going to engage in a dialogue with an alien civilisation this is something that needs the consideration of everybody on the planet."

Possibility of finding aliens rises a billionfold

Martin Rees, Britain's astronomer royal and one of the project leaders, said modern technology allowed much more sensitive searches than ever before, though he cautioned against expectations of finding intelligent alien life.

"It's a huge gamble, of course, but the pay-off would be so colossal ... even if the chance of success is small," the astrophysicist said.

The possibility of finding life had however effectively risen a billionfold through the identification of billions of Earth-like planets in the Milky Way, he said.

"Is there life out there? We may not answer it but this gives a bigger chance that it may be answered in our lifetime," he said.

The program will be 50 times more sensitive than previous searches, and cover 10 times more of the sky, experts said.

It will scan at least five times more of the radio spectrum, and 100 times faster, while in tandem undertake the deepest and broadest-ever search for optical laser transmissions.

The initiative was launched on the 46th anniversary of the first manned Moon landing.

It is allied with the Breakthrough Message project, an international competition to create digital messages that represent humanity.

There is no commitment to send any messages into space, and the project should spark discussion about whether humans should be sending messages at all out into the void.

AFP/ABC

Topics: astronomy-space, space-exploration, science-and-technology, parkes-2870, united-kingdom, orange-2800, nsw

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