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Stephen Hawking and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner have announced Breakthrough Listen, a $100 million project that will increase the intensity of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (or their signals):
Speaking at the launch, Prof Hawking said: "Somewhere in the cosmos, perhaps, intelligent life may be watching these lights of ours, aware of what they mean. "Or do our lights wander a lifeless cosmos - unseen beacons, announcing that here, on one rock, the Universe discovered its existence. Either way, there is no bigger question. It's time to commit to finding the answer - to search for life beyond Earth. We are alive. We are intelligent. We must know."
Those behind the initiative claim it to be the biggest scientific search ever undertaken for signs of intelligent life beyond Earth. They plan to cover 10 times more of the sky than previous programmes and scan five times more of the radio spectrum, 100 times faster. It will involve access to two of the world's most powerful telescopes. - the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and the Parkes Telescope in New South Wales, Australia.
Yuri Milner is known for his creation and funding of Breakthrough Prizes, which award $3 million to researchers for achievements in the life sciences, physics, and mathematics. Also reported at Washington Post, NPR, El Reg, and Scientific American.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by edIII on Tuesday July 21 2015, @12:28AM
I consider it a complete waste, but only because I consider humanity a complete waste. You hit the nail on the head though. We're spending ridiculous amounts of money to strongly attempt to interact with geological timescales at a minimum. It makes no sense to me.
Aliens exist! We've found signals from Rhontar 5! Yay! So.... what? Multibillion dollar project to create space folding to Rhontar 5? Start sending signals now? What? I've discovered that there are a few hominids living in the hills of West Virginia. Doesn't mean I'm making plans to visit/study them.
Alien's don't exist! Well.... Universe is pretty big. I sincerely doubt we will *ever* possess enough information to say aliens don't exist, much less, God is dead. Nonetheless, we're the only life in the universe. Guess we just move on right?
Other than the attempt to ask the question, and it's nobility an excitement aside, there's nothing about it that can't be put aside for say.... 250 years. Given the sociopolitical problems we have, and the fact we are absolutely killing the planet faster and faster each day, I'm going to go with putting *all* of that money into colonies on Mars and the Moon. Far more practical to put the money into hard research on space faring technologies that give us critically needed redundancy.
As I see it, it will be somewhere in the middle of the 22nd century when Earth becomes unable to sustain life anymore, and if Rhontar 5 wants to respond to us, they will need to redirect the answer to a colony. Mother planet will be long dead with the alien visitors rushing towards the final messages of de facto prisoners tapping out messages on the prison wall.
Finally, cynicism, misanthropic inclinations, whatever, but I refuse to believe that an advanced alien civilization wouldn't treat us like an infestation that needs to be killed before it spreads. I've yet to find any part of humanity so interesting and valuable as to render our clearly dangerous and self-destructive proclivities less important than their scientific curiosity. At the very least, I can see us being quarantined just like North Korea.
Why wouldn't an alien civilization decide to destroy us on the spot once they got a good look at how we conduct ourselves? Reminds me.... I've got aphids in the garden. BRB.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @07:01AM
Prove that is not just an assumption.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday July 21 2015, @06:53PM
Why?
I was addressing it as a *possible* answer, along with the assumption that there was other life in the universe, in order to make a statement about either outcome.
I suggest the search for reading comprehension.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by deimtee on Tuesday July 21 2015, @09:52AM
You want to put the money into colonies on Mars and the Moon? $100M won't get you anywhere.
But, if they can credibly announce "We have detected intelligent transmissions form Deneb IV" how much more total funding will suddenly become available for space?
I don't know how likely it is that they will find anyone, but I do consider it worthwhile to search.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday July 21 2015, @07:08PM
I no longer consider it worthwhile to search. Not as an absolute statement, but at least for our current situation.
Looking is entirely besides the point. It's just us screaming into the darkness, while simultaneously spending billions to listen intently for signals indicating intelligence. Meanwhile, what is going on with us again? Somebody else had a very good point, and I'm expounding on it. That point is simply that we don't have the luxury of sitting around scanning the stars for intelligence. We need to apply *our* intelligence and efforts into surviving the lengths of time it will take to enjoy the luxury of searching for other life and then communicating with it.
Your other point is simply a funding drive. It's no so much the science, as it's the marketing to get funds to perform *other* science? Put in the other science first. It will help keep us alive.
The marketing will take care of itself soon enough as the powers that be made *damn* sure to tank the entire planet for short term profits. When we're suffering just a little bit more, it won't take much to get a plebe to part with some coins so we can effectively create new land and opportunities elsewhere. Watch the movie Elysium.
The state we are in, is one of dire emergency. I'm not interested in spending money when the end goal of the entire project isn't viable in the remotest sense, even if it's wildly successful. In other words, we're just spending money to scream out our suicide note a little longer, or look for something out there to scream it towards.
Perhaps my outlook is a bit dark, but I just don't think the timing is appropriate given how bad our situation really is.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.