Russian billionaire and Silicon Valley investor Yuri Milner announced Monday that he would be spend $100 million to search for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. The announcement was made at the Royal Society of London, with Milner holding a conference call along with theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. The announcement was meant to highlight Breakthrough Listen, a worldwide project aimed at finding extraterrestial life. “There has never been a better moment for a large-scale international effort to find life in the universe. As a civilization, we owe it to ourselves to commit time, resources, and passion to this quest,” according to a letter signed by many notable astrophysicists backing the Breakthrough Listen initiative.