Breakthrough Watch is an astronomical research programme that identifies potentially habitable planets for signs of alien life. Founded in 2016, the programme currently targets Earth-like planets around Alpha Centauri and other nearby star systems.

Watch is one of five Breakthrough Initiatives from science philanthropist Yuri Milner. The Israeli billionaire is the founder of DST Global and a Giving Pledge signatory. Alongside the Breakthrough Initiatives, Yuri Milner co-founded the Breakthrough Prize. He also wrote Eureka Manifesto: The Mission for Our Civilisation.

Searching For Life on Other Planets

Discoveries in the last few decades by the Kepler Mission and other teams have shown us that there’s a good chance most stars have planets. Plus, tens of billions of planets in the Milky Way are “exo-Earths.”

These rocky, vaguely Earth-sized planets dwell in their stars’ habitable zones and have characteristics that are favourable to hosting life, such as liquid water. Breakthrough Watch’s mission involves locating exo-Earths and analysing their composition. The programme hopes to find “biosignatures” that could prove the existence of extraterrestrial life.

Yuri Milner discusses the possibility of encountering advanced alien civilisations in his short book Eureka Manifesto. Published in 2021 and available to read online for free, Eureka Manifesto recommends humanity embrace a shared mission to explore and understand our Universe.

Eureka Manifesto includes Yuri Milner’s thoughts on how the discovery of life could revolutionise our perspective on the Universe.

Advancing Observational Capabilities Breakthrough Watch can learn a lot about a planet simply by looking at its colour. If an exo-Earth appears blue in Watch’s telescopes, it could be a prime candidate for an oxygen-rich atmosphere and primitive life. But spotting a pale blue dot against the intense light of a star is easier said than done.

To advance Watch’s search for habitable planets, the programme has partnered with the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

In 2016, Watch began an ambitious project to adapt the ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. The project took several years to complete and involved designing and installing a thermal infrared coronagraph on one of the VLT’s telescopes. Coronagraphy helps reduce glaring stellar light when searching for distant planets.

In 2019, Watch and ESO launched a $3 million, 100-hour observation programme called New Earths in the AlphaCen Region (NEAR). The programme focused on identifying exo-Earths basking in the habitable zones of two Alpha Centauri stars.

Watch’s new VLT instrumentation enabled the programme to detect planets smaller than Neptune. This discovery heralded a leap forward in our observational capabilities of planets in neighbouring star systems.

Yuri Milner’s Breakthrough Initiatives

Besides Watch, Yuri Milner’s other Breakthrough Initiatives are Listen, Message, Starshot, and Discuss. The programmes seek scientific evidence of extraterrestrial life and encourage public discussion around the subject. Frank Drake, Bernie Oliver, and Stephen Hawking are amongst the people Yuri Milner credits for inspiring his funding of the programmes.

The Breakthrough Initiatives receive funding through Julia and Yuri Milner’s Breakthrough Foundation. The Milners established the Breakthrough Foundation to help realise their Giving Pledge commitment.

The Giving Pledge encourages some of the world’s richest people to donate most of their wealth to charitable causes. Joining the Giving Pledge in 2012, the Milners promised to support mainly scientific causes.

That same year, the couple founded the Breakthrough Prize to honour the work of leading scientists and mathematicians. The Breakthrough Prize is the largest scientific award in the world, rewarding laureates with prizes of up to $3 million.

In his Giving Pledge letter, Yuri Milner describes launching the Breakthrough Prize as a way to invest in scientists. The Breakthrough Initiatives represent another of the philanthropist’s investments, this time into humanity’s shared future.

Clare Louise