Three of the world’s richest and most intelligent men are hoping to be the first to find alien life. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner and physicist Stephen Hawking have revealed exclusively that they will be listening to signals from 'Earth 2.0'.

Officially named Proxima b, the rocky planet is believed to have the right conditions to harbour life and is just four light years from Earth.The trio are funding an ambitious $100 million (£76 million) project known as ‘Breakthrough Listen’, which will use the world's most powerful telescopes to listen to messages from ET.


BREAKTHROUGH LISTEN.

Breakthrough Listen is a search for intelligent life using two of the world's most powerful telescopes.

It was launched in January with the aim of scouring one million of the closest stars to Earth for faint signals thrown out into space by intelligent life beyond our own world.Scientists taking part in the £76 million ($100 million) project are also scanning the very heart of our galaxy along with 100 of the closest galaxies for low power radio transmissions.Breakthrough Listen will collect data over a 10-year period. Search capacity will be 50 times more sensitive, cover 10 times more of the sky, five times more of the radio spectrum, and at speeds 100 times faster.



Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3765291/Mark-Zuckerberg-Yuri-Milner-Stephen-Hawking-begin-100-million-search-alien-life-nearby-Earth-like-planet.html

Proxima b is just four light years from Earth - close enough to be reached by future space missions. Pictured is an artist's impression ofthe surface of the planet, looking out onto its star and the double star Alpha Centauri.

On October 4, the Breakthrough Listen team will use the Parkes Observatory in Australia to look for radio emission that differs from the natural background noise.

This is the very reason why God made dem billionaires in the first place!





Good job. Dangote should donate to dis cause as well instead of planning to buy NLNG.

WHAT MAKES PROXIMA B UNIQUE?


Distance: This is the closest Earth-like planet we could ever find.Orbiting our nearest star, the planet is only four light years away. Missions to send spacecraft to the planet to look for signs of life are already being planned, and could happen within decades.


Composition: The planet is rocky and a similar size to Earth.


Temperature: It lies in the 'habitable zone' of its star, which means there could be liquid water on its surface - a key ingredient for alien life. The temperature on the surface of the planet could be between -90° and 30° Celsius (-130 and 86 Fahrenheit).


Atmosphere: If Proxima b has an atmosphere, the simple ingredients - water, carbon dioxide, and rock - that are needed for the formation of biochemical cycles that we call life, could all be present and interacting on the planet's surface.

Earth and Proxima b are only 4 light years apart (inset), making them galactic neighbours.

Scientists hope we can reach the planet in the next few decades.

Interesting. I just wanna take a look at the stars through one of those power telescope!

I remember when I and my friends use to jokes about our ancestors not getting captured and shipped off during the slave trade era.

Living in advanced societies comes with some advantages: some ideas are just easy to be materialised.
Wel, I thank God for putting me here anyway.

Mehn this is interesting

When you have too much money and don't know what to do with it..

Cutehector:
This is the very reason why God made dem billionaires in the first place!





Good job. Dangote should donate to dis cause as well instead of planning to buy NLNG.

Lol...Dangote ke. Will that yield $100Billion?

akraym:
Mehn this is interesting

guy y tempting thou me?

NairaMarked!



#Orire

Good job explorer, but.... what happens to the on going project in china or are they on their own?

The world of science is interesting

wins18:
Good job explorer, but.... what happens to the on going project in china or are they on their own?

Thanks bro. Just like a race, first country to land on moon, first to contact aliens or first to discover earth like planet.

China is on it.

Explorers:


Thanks bro. Just like a race, first country to land on moon, first to contact aliens or first to discover earth like planet.

China is on it.

Thats interesting, they are competing.... But don't you think the project is too big for china to even consider diving into at the first place, considering the fact that china has little or no reputations atall in cosmic/space science and technology

wins18:

Thats interesting, they are competing.... But don't you think the project is too big for china to even consider diving into at the first place, considering the fact that china has little or no reputations atall in cosmic/space science and technology

one thing you forget is that whatever China goes into they don't spare a thing and they succeed

jmichlins:
one thing you forget is that whatever China goes into they don't spare a thing and they succeed

dats good

wins18:

Thats interesting, they are competing.... But don't you think the project is too big for china to even consider diving into at the first place, considering the fact that china has little or no reputations atall in cosmic/space science and technology

That's not a big project for china. Wih that telescope now, they are leading.

This is the kind of investment that rich people should venture into. A wealthy man will always aspire to explore the universe and hence makes it an observable one.

Great work @Explorer.

HCpaul:
This is the kind of investment that rich people should venture into. A wealthy man will always aspire to explore the universe and hence makes it an observable one.

Great work @Explorer.

Thanks bro. They've made fortune, history, made name already. But what are they trying to make again now??

Explorers:


Thanks bro. They've made fortune, history, made name already. But what are they trying to make again now??

If they're successful, a planet or star or both might be named after them.
Hence, they'll make a fortune, history and name in another sphere of the cosmos.

herald9:

If they're successful, a planet or star or both might be named after them.
Hence, they'll make a fortune, history and name in another sphere of the cosmos.

Hmmmm....If its successful, then we need a country that will be named Nairaland. Who will be the president o

Lalasticlala lets people see what Zuckerberg is up to this time....

I recall Mark posting this on Facebook.

I'm proud to join Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking for a new space initiative to go beyond our nearby planets to explore other stars for the first time in human history.
Our nearest star, Alpha Centauri, is 4.3 light years or about 25 trillion miles away. Even with today's fastest spacecraft, it would take 30,000 years to get there. That's too long.
The new idea here is that instead of using large spacecraft burning fuel like people have in all traditional space travel, we're going to create a fleet of tiny spacecraft -- or nanocraft -- that we can accelerate to 20% of the speed of light using an array of laser beams from our planet's surface. At that speed of 100 million miles per hour, it will only take 20 years to reach Alpha Centauri. This is a completely new way to think about space travel and exploration.
The reason this project is important is recent research has found many stars have planets within a distance where they could have water to sustain life. That is, they're close enough to their star that any water isn't frozen but not so close that it has all evaporated. But just because a planet is in this habitable zone doesn't mean it has water and is a place we can actually live. For example, Mars has no water, so it would be difficult to ever live there. It's quite possible the closest planet that humans could actually live on is orbiting Alpha Centauri, and the only way to know that for sure is to visit close enough to photograph the planet, which is what this project will do.
Over the years, Yuri and I have worked on a number of science initiatives together, including creating the Breakthrough Prize. I'm excited to support this latest initiative with Stephen Hawking, and to help bring human space exploration to the stars.

Seems space is the only thing USA and Russia have agreed not to play politics with.

But you know eh, Explorers, Stephen Hawkings is skeptical about we surviving should we meet aliens. . .

wins18:

Thats interesting, they are competing.... But don't you think the project is too big for china to even consider diving into at the first place, considering the fact that china has little or no reputations atall in cosmic/space science and technology

Nah. . . I don't think the project is big for China.

Feraz:
Seems space is the only thing USA and Russia have agreed not to play politics with.

Nah. . . I don't think the project is big for China. Even if they do not make the rockets needed, Russia is always there to help.

But my fear is if they eventually make a contact, the source of the signal will be traced back here. What if things aliens are more advanced


Uve seen Battleship starring Rihanna

Explorers:


But my fear is if they eventually make a contact, the source of the signal will be traced back here. What if things aliens are more advanced


Uve seen Battleship starring Rihanna?

And a scout ship, using a way advanced warp drive will reach Earth in a month for situation report to mother planet. And in three months time, alien invasion of earth!

Hopefully, they would consider us not worth their conquest.

No. I haven't seen Battleship. Someone will bring up Area 51 soon.

Wowww, lets watch out.

O! Well, somebody should call me that boy, lalasticlala to move this to the "front page" asap. I need more comments.

Dayoto:
O! Well, somebody should call me that boy, lalasticlala to move this to the "front page" asap. I need more comments.

Lol...Bro we expecting you here.

Aliens already exist

ExAngel007:
Aliens already exist

Maybe sis.