Stephen Hawking sponsors launchpad for alien search

Washington, July 21: Searching for aliens is no more a secret. Stephen Hawking has openly declared his wish to launch a $100-million project to hunt for aliens. Named as the 'Biggest scientific search ever undertaken for signs of intelligent life beyond Earth," the programme was launched at the Royal Society in London.

Justifying his mission, Hawking said,"We believe life arose spontaneously on earth. So in an infinite universe there must be other occurrences of life. Somewhere in the cosmos perhaps intelligent life may be watching these lives of ours, aware of what they mean."

The author of a 'Brief History of Time' said,"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 is time to commit to finding the answer to search for life beyond Earth. We are alive, we are intelligent, we must know."

Apart from Hawking, the US-based billionaire and Silicon Valley technology investor and physicist Yuri Milner is also sponsoring the programme. The mission will cover exploration of 10 times more of the sky and scan five times more of the radio spectrum, which is 100 times faster. Meanwhile, the 'Breakthrough Message' is likely to fund an international competition to generate messages and translate to the outside world.

OneIndia News