Like a scene out of a science fiction movie Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner took to the stage in London Monday for a press conference announcing project Breakthrough Listen. The project is offering up a $100 million dollar reward to whomever can find alien life.
“We believe that life arose spontaneously on Earth,” Hawking said at Monday’s news conference, “So in an infinite universe, there must be other occurrences of life.”
University of California at Berkeley astronomer Geoffrey Marcy also spoke citing the discoveries of rocky planets the correct distance from their suns to sustain water therefore life. Marcy and Hawking believe that these discoveries not only show that alien life is possible but very likely probable.
That being said, the group of esteemed scientists gathered on Monday didn’t make any bold claims about immediately hunting down intelligent life-forms — or ever finding them at all, for that matter. But the likelihood of success is about to shoot up exponentially, because right now we’re barely trying.
Human nature has always been that of curiosity. We long to learn more and long to know why. Whether or not there is other life out there, the way our minds are built we will always be searching for the next “something.”
What do you think of Stephen Hawking’s reward for alien life? Let us know in the comments below or on Google+, Facebook and Twitter.
[button link=”http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/07/20/stephen-hawking-announces-100-million-hunt-for-alien-life/” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Washington Post[/button]Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
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