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“Deep Space of the Cosmos” –There’s a Mysterious Energy Latent In It Which Can Tell Us About Our Fate  Posted on Aug 15, 2018 “Empty space seems to be nothing to us. By analogy, water may seem to be nothing to a fish – it’s what’s left when you take away all the other things floating in the sea. Likewise, empty space is conjectured to be quite complicated,” Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal and Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge.Philosophers have debated the nature of “nothing” for thousands of years, but what has modern science got...

On Monday, famed physicist Stephen Hawking and Russian tycoon Yuri Milner held a news conference in London to announce their new project: injecting $100 million and a whole lot of brain power into the search for intelligent extraterrestrial life, an endeavor they're calling Breakthrough Listen. "We believe that life arose spontaneously on Earth," Hawking said at Monday's news conference, "So in an infinite universe, there must be other occurrences of life." Geoffrey Marcy, a University of California, Berkeley, astronomer who found most of our first exoplanets, also spoke at the event as part of the group's brain trust....

A $100 Million Infusion for SETI Researchby Paul Gilster on July 20, 2015 SETI received a much needed boost this morning as Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner, along with physicist Stephen Hawking and a panel including Frank Drake, Ann Druyan, Martin Rees and Geoff Marcy announced a $100 million pair of initiatives to reinvigorate the search. The first of these, Breakthrough Listen, dramatically upgrades existing search methods, while Breakthrough Message will fund an international competition to create the kind of messages we might one day send to other stars, although the intention is also to provoke the necessary discussion and debate...

Russian billionaire Yuri Milner announces most comprehensive hunt for alien life.You could say that the silence has been deafening. Since its beginnings more than half a century ago, the dedicated search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has failed to detect the presence of alien civilizations. But at London’s Royal Society today (20 July), Russian billionaire Yuri Milner announced a shot in the arm for SETI: a US$100-million decadal project to provide the most comprehensive hunt for alien communications so far. The initiative, called Breakthrough Listen, will see radio telescopes at Green Bank in West Virginia, the Parkes Observatory in Australia, and...

Is there anyone else out there in the universe? The endeavor to answer that eternal question got a serious shot in the arm this week thanks to Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner. At the Royal Society in London, the billionaire announced the launch of Breakthrough Listen, a 10-year, $100 million initiative to search for signs of extraterrestrial life. Related: The Power of Planning: NASA's Pluto Flyby Was Epic and Amazing Aided by the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in W. Va., the CSIRO Parkes Telescope in New South Wales, Australia and the Lick Telescope in at the Lick Observatory in...

Astronomer Royal, Sir Martin Rees describes how for the first time, humans as a species may start to change in observable ways within single lifetimes and under some loose control of our own influence. If this future plays out, the future itself becomes more difficult to forecast. Helen Matsos: Earlier this year our magazine interviewed the Vatican Astronomer, Brother Guy Consolmagno [link in original article]. He discussed how the possible finding of alien life would impact world religions. Do you have any views on that? Martin Rees: I admire what the Vatican is doing in astronomy. The search for extraterrestrial...

The end of the world as we know it (maybe) Martin Rees, the astronomer royal, believes our civilisation will be lucky to survive the century. Simon Hattenstone hears why. Thursday April 24, 2003 The Guardian Martin Rees is rather chirpy for a horseman of the apocalypse. He welcomes me to his house in Cambridge with a firm handshake and optimistic smile. His dog Masha wags her tail, jumps up and insists we dance. "I'm just about to make a cup of tea. Would you like one. Milk? Sugar?" A tiny bit of sugar would be lovely, I say. He trots...