Breakthrough Listen is a ten-year $100 million initiative by Russian tycoon Yuri Milner to search for intelligent extraterrestrial life in the Universe.[1][2][3] It is part of Milner's Breakthrough Initiatives, and was announced alongside Breakthrough Message. It has been described as the most comprehensive search for alien communications to date.[2]
Features
One-third of the funding will be used to obtain radio telescope time, one-third will be used to fund research and development of new receiver technology, and one-third will be used to hire astronomers.[4][5] The project will use thousands of hours every year on two major radio telescopes, the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia and the Parkes Observatory in Australia.[6] Previously, only about 24 to 36 hours of radio telescope time per year was used in the search for alien communications.[2]
The project will be allocated approximately 20% of the annual observing time of the Green Bank Telescope from early 2016, in return for around $2 million per year of funding.[7] Similarly, the project will be allocated approximately a quarter of the observing time on the Parkes Telescope in Australia from October 2016 for a period of five years.[8] Together, the radio telescopes will cover ten times more sky than previous searches and scan the entire 1-to-10 GHz range, the so-called "quiet zone" in the spectrum where radio waves are unobscured by cosmic sources or Earth’s atmosphere. The radio telescopes have the sensitivity to detect a transmitter of the same power as a common aircraft radar within the 1,000 nearest stars.[9]
The project plans to search the closest one million stars to Earth, and also scan the center of the galaxy and the galactic plane. The project will also search the nearest hundred galaxies.[10] Milner estimates that the project will generate as much data in one day as previous SETI projects generated in one year.[2] All data will be made publicly available, in order to allow enthusiasts to help process the data and to ensure transparency. The project will partner with SETI@home to help process the data.[6]
In addition to the search for radio waves, the Automated Planet Finder of Lick Observatory will search for optical signals coming from laser transmissions.[11] The telescope has the sensitivity to detect a 100 watt laser from a star 25 trillion miles (4.25 light years) away.[9]
Announcement
Breakthrough Listen was announced to the public on 20 July 2015 (the anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing) by Milner at London's Royal Society. The event was flanked by scientists such as Frank Drake, who is known for the Drake equation that estimates the number of detectable alien civilizations, and Geoff Marcy, an astronomer who has helped find hundreds of exoplanets.[12] The announcement included an open letter co-signed by multiple scientists, including physicist Stephen Hawking, expressing support for an intensified search for alien life.[2][13] During the public launch, Hawking said:
"In an infinite Universe, there must be other life. There is no bigger question. It is time to commit to finding the answer."[2]
Project leadership
- Frank Drake, Chairman Emeritus, SETI Institute; Professor Emeritus of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz; Founding Director, National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center; Former Goldwin Smith Professor of Astronomy, Cornell University.
- Ann Druyan, Creative Director of the Voyager Interstellar Message, NASA Voyager; Co-Founder and CEO, Cosmos Studios; Emmy Award- and Peabody Award-winning writer and producer.
- Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, Fellow of Trinity College; Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics, University of Cambridge.
- Andrew Siemion, Director, Berkeley SETI Research Center.[10]
- Dan Werthimer, Co-founder and chief scientist of the SETI@home project; director of SERENDIP; principal investigator for CASPER.
- Pete Worden, Chairman, Breakthrough Prize Foundation.
See also
- Communication with extraterrestrial intelligence
- Nexus for Exoplanet System Science
- Ohio State University Radio Observatory
- Search for extraterrestrial intelligence
- SETI@home
- Open data, Open-source software
References
- ^ Feltman, Rachel (20 July 2015). "Stephen Hawking announces $100 million hunt for alien life". The Washington Post. Retrieved 20 July 2015.
- ^ a b c d e f Merali, Zeeya (20 July 2015). "Search for extraterrestrial intelligence gets a $100-million boost. Russian billionaire Yuri Milner announces most comprehensive hunt for alien life.". Nature News. Retrieved 20 July 2015.
- ^ Rundle, Michael (20 July 2015). "$100m Breakthrough Listen is 'largest ever' search for alien civilisations". Wired. Retrieved 20 July 2015.
- ^ Toor, Amar. "Yuri Milner will spend $100 million to look for aliens". The Verge. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
- ^ McRobert, Alan. ""Breakthrough Listen": Giant Leap for SETI – Sky & Telescope". Sky & Telescope Media. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
- ^ a b Sample, Ian (20 July 2015). "Anybody out there? $100m radio wave project to scan far regions for alien life". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 July 2015.
- ^ Blue, Charles. "Green Bank Telescope Joins 'Breakthrough Listen' – NRAO: Revealing the Hidden Universe". NRAO. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
- ^ Ball, Lewis. "Breakthrough Listen | Universe @ CSIRO". csirouniverseblog.com. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
- ^ a b Brodkin, Jon. "$100 million search for aliens will listen for messages from 100 galaxies". Ars Technica. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
- ^ a b "Breakthrough Initiatives". breakthroughinitiatives.org. Breakthrough Initiatives. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
- ^ "Listen". breakthroughinitiatives.org. Breakthrough Initiatives. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
- ^ Zhang, Sarah. "A Russian Tycoon Is Spending $100 Million to Hunt for Aliens". Wired. Retrieved 11 August 2015.
- ^ Vella, Matt (21 July 2015). "Read the Inspiring 'Questions of Existence' Letter from the World's Greatest Thinkers". Time. Retrieved 21 July 2015.
External links
- Breakthrough Listen, Breakthrough Initiatives website
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