Breakthrough Initiatives

Breakthrough Initiatives is a science-based program founded in 2015 and funded by Julia and Yuri Milner,[1] also of Breakthrough Prize, to search for extraterrestrial intelligence over a span of at least 10 years. The program is divided into multiple projects. Breakthrough Listen will comprise an effort to search over 1,000,000 stars for artificial radio or laser signals. A parallel project called Breakthrough Message is an effort to create a message "representative of humanity and planet Earth".[2][3] The project Breakthrough Starshot, co-founded with Mark Zuckerberg,[4] aims to send a swarm of probes to the nearest star at about 20% the speed of light. The project Breakthrough Watch aims to identify and characterize Earth-sized, rocky planets around Alpha Centauri and other stars within 20 light years of Earth.[5] Breakthrough plans to send a mission to Saturn's moon Enceladus,[6] in search for life in its warm ocean, and in 2018 signed a partnership agreement with NASA for the project.[7]

  1. ^ "Breakthrough Initiatives - About". Archived from the original on 13 April 2021. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
  2. ^ Lendino, Jamie (20 July 2015). "Stephen Hawking, Milner unveil $100M initiative to 'dramatically accelerate' search for alien life". ExtremeTech. Archived from the original on 11 July 2018. Retrieved 20 July 2015.
  3. ^ Johnson, Steven (28 June 2017). "Greetings, E.T. (Please Don't Murder Us.)". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 19 July 2018. Retrieved 28 June 2017.
  4. ^ Seung, Lee (13 April 2016). "Mark Zuckerberg just joined a new project to explore the universe faster". Newsweek. Archived from the original on 22 October 2020. Retrieved 29 May 2019.
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