Breakthrough Watch and European Southern Observatory Achieve First Light on Upgraded Planet-finding Instrument “Pete Worden, Executive Director of the Breakthrough Initiatives, said: “We’re delighted to collaborate with the ESO in designing, building, installing and now using this innovative new instrument. If there are Earth-like planets around Alpha Centauri A and B, that’s huge news for everyone on our planet.” “ESO is glad to bring its expertise, existing infrastructure, and observing […]

Looking for extraterrestrials – The optimistic gamble, Economist “Mr Milner reckons there are three reasons why the moment is right to go big on SETI. One is that Kepler, a space telescope run by NASA, has shown that there are a lot of potentially habitable planets out there. Geoff Marcy, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley, who will run Breakthrough Listen, says Kepler-based studies suggest that perhaps one […]