Tag: Breakthrough Starshot
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We can leave the Solar System, but arriving anywhere is not happening soon
On August 25th, 2012, humanity became an interstellar species. There was no fanfare or galactic welcome party as a humble robotic probe, the Voyager 1 spacecraft, crossed an invisible threshold. It slipped between the region dominated by the physics of the Sun and into the thin milieu of plasma between the stars. Whatever fate befalls…
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‘Oumuamua, oh my! Was interstellar object actually an alien solar sail? Not so fast
An artist’s conception shows what the interstellar asteroid Oumuamua might look like. Or does it actually look more an alien light sail? (ESO Illustration / M. Kornmesser) ‘Oumuamua is long gone from the inner solar system, but the mystery surrounding the interstellar interloper has been rekindled, thanks to a research paper written by two Harvard…
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Billionaire Yuri Milner discusses his plan to look for life on Saturn moon – and his Russian connections
Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, at right, chats with The Economist’s Oliver Morton during the “New Space Age” conference at Seattle’s Museum of Flight. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) Russian billionaire Yuri Milner today laid out his vision to send the first privately funded interplanetary space mission to look for life at the Saturnian moon Enceladus —…
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Newfound dust belts suggest that Proxima Centauri has more than one alien planet
An artist’s impression shows the newly discovered belts of dust around Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our solar system. This sketch is not to scale — to make Proxima b clearly visible, it has been shown farther from the star and larger than it is in reality. (ESO Illustration / M. Kornmesser) Astronomers created…
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Breakthrough Starshot tests smallest space probes for interstellar mission
Russian billionaire Yuri Milner holds a “Sprite” mini-probe like the ones that are being tested in low Earth orbit. (Breakthrough Starshot via YouTube / SciNews) Breakthrough Starshot says it’s been testing prototype interstellar spacecraft no bigger than postage stamps in orbit for the past month, and they seem to be working just fine. Six of…
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Stephen Hawking lays out plan for settling space, from moon and Mars to the stars
Physicist Stephen Hawking addresses an audience at the Starmus Festival via video. (Starmus via YouTube) British physicist Stephen Hawking has repeatedly warned us that we have just a century or two to move off Earth, and he just shared his vision for how to do it. Hawking laid out a timetable this week during a…
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How do you stop a speeding starship?
The aim of the Starshot project is to send a tiny spacecraft propelled by an enormous rectangular photon sail to the Alpha Centauri star system, as shown in this artist’s conception, (Planetary Habitability Laboratory, University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo) Millions of dollars are being spent on a scheme to speed up swarms of tiny…
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Very Large Telescope joins Breakthrough search for Alpha Centauri’s planets
The ESO’s Very Large Telescope looms in the foreground of this image, and a star map has been superimposed on the night sky to show the locations of Alpha Centauri and Proxima Centauri. (ESO Photo) One of the most powerful observing instruments on Earth, the Very Large Telescope, will join the search for potentially habitable…
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Shields up! Scientists tweak design of Alpha Centauri probes to minimize damage
An artist’s conception suggests how light from a battery of laser-equipped antennas can power a sail to the Alpha Centauri system. (Credit: Breakthrough Initiatives) The scientists behind the Breakthrough Starshot mission are already fine-tuning the design for their nano-probes to increase the odds they’ll survive the trip to Proxima Centauri b. In a paper posted…
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Russian billionaire devotes $100 million to star flight initiative
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Entrepreneur Yuri Milner, holding up a prototype StarChip spacecraft he hopes to develop and, within a generation, launch to the nearest star using ground-based lasers and ultra-thin light sails. Credit: Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Breakthrough Starshot Russian billionaire Yuri Milner plans to spend $100 million over the next…