Co-founder of Mail.ru will invest $ 100 million in the search for extraterrestrials

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Co-founder of Mail.ru Group, Yuri Milner decided to invest 100 million dollars in the project SETI. As the entrepreneur at a press conference in London, the idea is that by using the most powerful telescopes in the world, united in a massive computer system to search for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. "The scope of our research will be unprecedented," - said Milner. According to him, when the system will be operational in one day research will gather more information than for the whole year at the approaches of the past.

Ideologists of the project called the Milner physicist Stephen Hawking, and his "scientific leader" - Frank Drake and Geoff Marcy. As I told earlier Milner newspaper "Vedomosti", all of them will participate in the project as a research coordinator.

"I'm here because I believe this initiative is extremely important, - he said at a press conference attended Hawking. - It's time to look for life beyond Earth. In the universe must have a certificate of life ».

Milner intends to finance the project from personal funds because the state did not dare to invest in such research. In particular, the businessman plans to finance the rental of telescopes and computer networks.

Milner members funded project will attempt to identify the signals of two types - radio wave (in the range from 500 MHz to 15 Hz) or a laser. I think journalists blundered and lost one letter G, probably the second figure should look something like 15GGts.

It is expected that the project will help expand the reach of these studies in more than 100 times.



According to Milner, пишут Vedomosti , funds will be spent in three directions. Firstly, already signed a unique five-year contract with the operator of the two largest telescopes in the world (Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia (USA) and the Parkes Telescope in Australia), as well as optical telescope Lick Observatory in California of their lease at the "significant part "time for space observations. "The initiative is also open to accession by other telescopes, including the Russian" Millimetron "after its entry into operation," - said Miller. In the area of ​​priority - to the nearest 1 million solar system of stars, the center of the Milky Way (where there is the maximum concentration of stars) and coming to the Milky Way galaxy 100.

Another part of the funds will be invested in the processing and storage of incoming information, which will be measured petabytes of data; the first stage Milner promises to use the power of the computer Research Center, Berkeley, and data processing - about 9 million computers, networked SETI @ home. These data will be posted on the Internet, and they will be provided free access: all the experts, scientific organizations, as well as amateur astronomers who wish to participate in the data analysis, will be able to do it.

Not so long ago I wrote an article about the fact that even Ethiopian milliradery invested in space programs in their countries , and our ... Today we can say, that supported our initiative! Rarely do they give reason to be proud of his actions, but this is exactly the case! To tell the truth: "I did not expect».

Particularly interesting is the fact that these observations will be the common property of any one of us can contribute to the search for extraterrestrial civilizations!

Source: geektimes.ru/post/259056/