SETI: Breakthrough Initiatives

[keg in kc]

Cool stuff...

Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking Announce $100 Million Breakthrough Initiative to Dramatically Accelerate Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe

10-year, Multi-disciplinary Search Effort Will Harness World’s Largest Telescopes to Mine Data from Nearest Million Stars, Milky Way and 100 Galaxies

London, UK – Monday, July 20, 2015 – Yuri Milner was joined at The Royal Society today by Stephen Hawking, Martin Rees, Frank Drake, Geoff Marcy, Pete Worden and Ann Druyan to announce the unprecedented $100 million global Breakthrough Initiatives to reinvigorate the search for life in the universe.

The first of two initiatives announced today, Breakthrough Listen, will be the most powerful, comprehensive and intensive scientific search ever undertaken for signs of intelligent life beyond Earth. The second, Breakthrough Message, will fund an international competition to generate messages representing humanity and planet Earth, which might one day be sent to other civilizations.
Breakthrough Listen

Biggest scientific search ever undertaken for signs of intelligent life beyond Earth.

• Significant access to two of the world’s most powerful telescopes – 100 Meter Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, USA (“Green Bank Telescope”)1 and 64-metre diameter Parkes Telescope in New South Wales, Australia (“Parkes Telescope”).
• 50 times more sensitive than previous programs dedicated to SETI research.
• Will cover 10 times more of the sky than previous programs.
• Will scan at least 5 times more of the radio spectrum – and 100 times faster.
• In tandem with a radio search, Automated Planet Finder Telescope at Lick Observatory in California, USA (“Lick Telescope”)2 will undertake world’s deepest and broadest search for optical laser transmissions.
• Initiative will span 10 years.
• Financial commitment is $100,000,000.

Unprecedented scope

The program will include a survey of the 1,000,000 closest stars to Earth. It will scan the center of our galaxy and the entire galactic plane. Beyond the Milky Way, it will listen for messages from the 100 closest galaxies. The telescopes used are exquisitely sensitive to long-distance signals, even of low or moderate power:

• If a civilization based around one of the 1,000 nearest stars transmits to us with the power of common aircraft radar, Breakthrough Listen telescopes could detect it.
• If a civilization transmits from the center of the Milky Way, with any more than 12 times the output of interplanetary radars we use to probe the Solar System, Breakthrough Listen telescopes could detect it.
• From a nearby star (25 trillion miles away), Breakthrough Listen’s optical search could detect a 100-watt laser (energy output of normal household light bulb).

Open Data, Open Source, Open Platform

The program will generate vast amounts of data. All data will be open to the public. This will likely constitute the largest amount of scientific data ever made available to the public. The Breakthrough Listen team will use and develop the most powerful software for sifting and searching this flood of data. All software will be open source. Both the software and the hardware used in the Breakthrough Listen project will be compatible with other telescopes around the world, so that they could join the search for intelligent life. As well as using the Breakthrough Listen software, scientists and members of the public will be able to add to it, developing their own applications to analyze the data.

Crowdsourced processing power

Breakthrough Listen will also be joining and supporting SETI@home, University of California, Berkeley’s ground breaking distributed computing platform, with 9 million volunteers around the world donating their spare computing power to search astronomical data for signs of life. Collectively, they constitute one of the largest supercomputers in the world.

Breakthrough Message

• International competition to create digital messages that represent humanity and planet Earth.
• The pool of prizes will total $1,000,000.
• Details on the competition will be announced at a later date.
• This initiative is not a commitment to send messages. It’s a way to learn about the potential languages of interstellar communication and to spur global discussion on the ethical and philosophical issues surrounding communication with intelligent life beyond Earth.

Project Leadership

• Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, Fellow of Trinity College; Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics, University of Cambridge.
• Pete Worden, Chairman, Breakthrough Prize Foundation.
• 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.
• Geoff Marcy, Professor of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley; Alberts SETI Chair.
• Ann Druyan, Creative Director of the Interstellar Message, NASA Voyager; Co-Founder and CEO, Cosmos Studios; Emmy and Peabody award winning Writer and Producer.
• Dan Werthimer, Co-founder and chief scientist of the SETI@home project; director of SERENDIP; principal investigator for CASPER.
• Andrew Siemion, Director, Berkeley SETI Research Center.

Yuri Milner said: “With Breakthrough Listen, we’re committed to bringing the Silicon Valley approach to the search for intelligent life in the Universe. Our approach to data will be open and taking advantage of the problem-solving power of social networks.”

Stephen Hawking said: "I strongly support the Breakthrough Initiatives and the search for extraterrestrial life."

Frank Drake said: “Right now there could be messages from the stars flying right through the room, through us all. That still sends a shiver down my spine. The search for intelligent life is a great adventure. And Breakthrough Listen is giving it a huge lift.”

“We’ve learned a lot in the last fifty years about how to look for signals from space. With the Breakthrough Initiatives, the learning curve is likely to bend upward significantly,” added Frank Drake.

Ann Druyan said: “The Breakthrough Message competition is designed to spark the imaginations of millions, and to generate conversation about who we really are in the universe and what it is that we wish to share about the nature of being alive on Earth. Even if we don’t send a single message, the act of conceptualizing one can be transformative. In creating the Voyager Interstellar Message, we strived to attain a cosmic perspective on our planet, our species and our time. It was intended for two distinct kinds of recipients - the putative extraterrestrials of distant worlds in the remote future and our human contemporaries. As we approach the Message's fortieth anniversary, I am deeply grateful for the chance to collaborate on the Breakthrough Message, for what we might discover together and in the hope that it might inform our outlook and even our conduct on this world."


Additional information www.breakthroughinitiatives.org.

Images, video and materials from today’s press conference are available for media download at the below link. Content will be uploaded throughout the day.

Link: http://www.image.net/BreakthroughLif...rseInitiatives

For media inquiries: media@breakthroughprize.org

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Rubenstein Communications, Inc.
New York, NY
Janet Wootten
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[Mr. Laz]

I guess i'm alone in thinking that we shouldn't be in too much of a hurry to find other intelligent life in the universe.

[Dave Lane]

Originally Posted by Mr. Laz

I guess i'm alone in thinking that we shouldn't be in too much of a hurry to find other intelligent life in the universe.

We can't even find any here.

[keg in kc]

Originally Posted by Mr. Laz

I guess i'm alone in thinking that we shouldn't be in too much of a hurry to find other intelligent life in the universe.

Good to find it, I think, looking at the big picture, but I've never been all that sure about attracting its attention.

[Rausch]

Originally Posted by Mr. Laz

I guess i'm alone in thinking that we shouldn't be in too much of a hurry to find other intelligent life in the universe.

Stephen Hawking himself said that.

Which makes this all the more bizarre...

[wazu]

Originally Posted by Dave Lane

We can't even find any here.

Bazinga! #WeBurned

[GloucesterChief]

Originally Posted by Mr. Laz

I guess i'm alone in thinking that we shouldn't be in too much of a hurry to find other intelligent life in the universe.

With our current understanding of physics, there may be intelligent life out there and we may be able to contact them but actually visiting each other may be impossible.

[Jerm]

Originally Posted by Rausch

Stephen Hawking himself said that.

Which makes this all the more bizarre...

Hasn't he always maintained that the only intelligent life that will visit us will be hostile and want to colonize/obliterate us or am I confusing him with someone else?

Bizarre indeed....

[oldandslow]

Originally Posted by Jerm

Hasn't he always maintained that the only intelligent life that will visit us will be hostile and want to colonize/obliterate us or am I confusing him with someone else?

Bizarre indeed....

Not to me. 'Dominant, more tech advanced civs tend to always take over those that are not as advanced in tech or greater population.

I think the first nations in the US can attest to that fact.

Andrew Jackson moved my ancestors from GA to OK (Choctaw). How could he do that? Better tech and more people.

After the Little Big Horn, my wife's people were practically obliterated from the face of the planet (Lakota). How did the US military do that? Better tech and more people.

I say all that to say this - If we make ourselves noticeable to a highly technological, warlike culture who are looking for resources or new colonies...well it's over for us.

[Mr. Laz]

Originally Posted by Dave Lane

We can't even find any here.

Seriously, we can't even get along with the people on our own world and we are going to try to find more "beings" to **** with? The first thing our government would say is "They are an unknown and therefore a threat, we need to build better weapons just in case"

Until we grow up and can stop acting like a bunch of assholes, we should just stick with our own planet.

Finding someone else in the universe is about as smart and us starting to genetically engineer the human body. Just bound to end up in complete shit.

[keg in kc]

There's a school of thought that discovery of an outside civilization might be the thing that finally motivates us all to get along with each other.

Personally I doubt that. I think the thing that really divides us is wealth - race, religion and the rest are just bread and circuses; carefully engineered and managed artificial social structures - and outside intelligence would just be another avenue to exploit for profit.

But it might also help us all see each other as humans. Although that's a bit too wide-eyed optimist for me.

[Xanathol]

Hawking - proof that people will label a glorified comic book writer as a genius if you hang a handicap sticker around their neck.

[CrazyPhuD]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

There's a school of thought that discovery of an outside civilization might be the thing that finally motivates us all to get along with each other.

Personally I doubt that. I think the thing that really divides us is wealth - race, religion and the rest are just bread and circuses; carefully engineered and managed artificial social structures - and outside intelligence would just be another avenue to exploit for profit.

But it might also help us all see each other as humans. Although that's a bit too wide-eyed optimist for me.

That might be true....only in the sense that your BBQ and beans get along on your plate.

Serious while I used to think SETI was cool, it has to be one of the dumbest ideas in the world.

Any 'good' superior aliens won't even be found by us because they wouldn't be so selfish(or frankly arrogant) as to interfere with our natural development.

Any technically superior species that's not good....will end up sucking the marrow out of our bones.

Think about it....what would have happened if some 'benevolent' species came and saved the dinosaurs from extinction(excluding time lords of course). Would we even be hear today? Likely not....our ancestors would have been toothpicks for T-Rexes.

[GloucesterChief]

Originally Posted by oldandslow

Not to me. 'Dominant, more tech advanced civs tend to always take over those that are not as advanced in tech or greater population.

I think the first nations in the US can attest to that fact.

Andrew Jackson moved my ancestors from GA to OK (Choctaw). How could he do that? Better tech and more people.

After the Little Big Horn, my wife's people were practically obliterated from the face of the planet (Lakota). How did the US military do that? Better tech and more people.

I say all that to say this - If we make ourselves noticeable to a highly technological, warlike culture who are looking for resources or new colonies...well it's over for us.

If an alien intelligence has faster then light travel capabilities they wouldn't be mining planets for resources. Asteroids have more minerals and well mining in zero g is a lot more efficient than mining in G.

[007]

Originally Posted by GloucesterChief

If an alien intelligence has faster then light travel capabilities they wouldn't be mining planets for resources. Asteroids have more minerals and well mining in zero g is a lot more efficient than mining in G.

Calling Harry Stamper