spacetoday.net: Russian billionaire to fund $100-million SETI effort

Posted: Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 9:24 AM ET (1324 GMT)
Green Bank Byrd Telescope (NRAO)

A Russian billionaire announced Monday he will provide $100 million over the next ten years to support the most extensive effort yet in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Yuri Milner said he will donate the money for an effort called "Breakthrough Listen", paying for telescope time on radio telescopes in West Virginia and Australia and an optical telescope in California that will look for laser pulses from alien civilizations. Funding will also go to improved systems to detect radio signals over a larger range of frequencies and at greater sensitivities, and to process the data more rapidly. A secondary effort, "Breakthrough Message," will involve a contest to develop a message to send into the universe, although the program has no plans to transmit the winning message.