Yuri Milner ( 53 ), a Russian billionaire, has been named after Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space and has been trained as a theoretical physicist, followed by an MBA from Wharton. He strayed into investment banking and has invested into Facebook, WhatsApp, Alibaba, Zynga, Groupon, Xiaomi etc. He also runs a VC Firm. His personal fortune is between $ 3 billion and $ 4 billion.

The powerful telescopes have spotted planets attached to distant stars. Minor has set up a project called Breakthrough Listen on July 20 15 by committing $ 100 million . The project’s aim is to search extra-terrestal life. The telescopes will be oriented to search in the directions of the spotted planets. They are very sensitive, capable of detecting a signal of 100-watt power ( a standard household bulb) from nearby stars and their planets. The distributed network of SETI : Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence consisting of 9 million PCs will analyse the recordings to detect an artificial signal. An associated project is Breakthrough Message which will beam digital messages into outer space. The data drom the project will be open. It is expected that definitive results will be visible in 10 years. Or else, the projects could be prolonged.

He has roped in Stephen Hawking. Luminaries such as Sergey Brin, Jack Ma, Anne Wojcicki and Mark Zuckerberg has been persuaded to fund these two projects.