Eminent physicist Stephen Hawking has come together with Russian billionaire Yuri Milner in the first substantive steps towards searching for extraterrestrial life.
The British Professor has openly lent his support to Milner's project called Breakthrough Listen Initiative, which aims to fund scientists engaged in the search for extraterrestrial life. The Russian project aims to support researchers financially by providing US$100 million over the course of the next ten years, according to Australia's News website.
Milner, who is an entrepreneur and has earned fortunes by investing in popular companies including Facebook, reportedly said he is looking to utilize Silicon Valley's innovations to search the skies and nearby 100 galaxies for extraterrestrial life.
The Breakthrough Listen project will allow scientists the means by which to access two radio telescopes, which are the most powerful in the world, according to Independent.
These telescopes are said to possess 50 times greater sensitivity than normal apparatuses will be used to monitor possible radio emissions by extraterrestrial life.The initiative which was launched at the Royal Society, will see Prof. Hawking supporting the project as an advisor.
Speaking at the launch, Hawking was quoted by the British publication saying that there is a chance that intelligent life could be watching the lights that light up earth from a far.
The British scientist went on to explain that while science is able to explain and discover many things about the universe such as atoms and black holes it has not been unable to explain the "lights that shine from planet Earth."
According to the famous physicist, in order to understand the reason behind these lights, the first step is to understand the beginning of life itself. He added that if life arose spontaneously on Earth, the occurrences of life in other universes cannot be ruled out.