Stephen Hawking Joins Bid In Seeking Extra-Terrestrial Life With Help Of Small Spacecraft

Famed physicist Stephen Hawking joined the bid at exploring far outside our solar system, alongside Yuri Milner and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, as well as a team of other scientists in a project called Breakthrough Starshot. Their budget? $100 million.

According to The Seattle Times, Yuri Milner said the eventual goal is sending hundreds or thousands of tiny spacecraft -- each weighing less than an ounce -- to the Alpha Centauri star system, which is about 2,000 time farther than any current spacecraft has gone before.

They will be propelled by energy from powerful Earth-based lasers, and the spacecraft will fly about one-fifth the speed of light. If all goes well, then they could reach Alpha Centauri in about 20 years, where they could make observations, and have the results sent back to earth.

Among the things that they could find in Alpha Centauri are other planets -- something that experts believe could happen, although so far, there has been no proven sighting yet. They could probably find signs of life, as well, although that remains to be seen.

Hawking joined Milner and Zuckerberg on Breakthrough Starshot, and Milner said that although his $100 million can establish project feasibility, although the spacecraft launch will require far more money than that.

Milner also said that recent advances in electronic miniaturization, laser technology, and fabrication of thin and light materials are among the things that made he mission realistic.
Hawking said that the project establishes that which makes humans unique, as our species are ready to transcend limits. He also noted that with the tech already available, they can launch the mission to Alpha Centauri within a generation.

Could there be aliens in the Alpha Centauri, though? Hawking told The Independent that he's willing to consider their existence, although he doubted that alien life forms would like humans very much.