Stephen Hawking Launches Largest Extraterrestrial Life Search Program

British cosmologist Stephen Hawking launched on Monday the largest search for extraterrestrial life ever, with a 10-year project that aims to scan space for signs of intelligent life. The Breakthrough Listen project, supported by Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner, will cost $ 100 million and will be the most powerful, complete and intensive attempt to look for signs of extraterrestrial life in the universe.

"In an infinite universe there must be other life cases. It may be that somewhere in the cosmos there may be intelligent life, " Hawking said at the launch of this project at the Royal Society, the British Academy of Sciences in London. "Anyway, there's no bigger question. It's time to commit to finding an answer, to seeking life beyond Earth. We should know, " he added.

The project will use some of the largest telescopes ever created to search for laser signals and electromagnetic spectra. In parallel to this initiative, the Breakthrough Message project, an international competition to create digital messages that represent humanity, was launched. So far, it has not been decided to send messages to space, and the project should generate debate about whether humans should do it or not.

London, United Kingdom

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