Hawking launches big search for alien life

British cosmologist Stephen Hawking on Monday launched the biggest-ever search for intelligent extraterrestrial life in a $100 million, 10-year project to scan the heavens.

Russian Silicon Valley entrepreneur Yuri Milner, who is funding the Breakthrough Listen initiative, said it would be the most intensive scientific search ever undertaken for signs of alien civilization.

"In an infinite universe, there must be other occurrences of life," Hawking said at the launch event at the Royal Society science academy in London.