A key piece of technology for interstellar travel may be within our reach, according to US scientists, but a plan to send a laser-propelled spacecraft to the star Proxima Centauri is still a long way from reality.
Thanks to the mind-boggling size of space, humans have so far been limited to exploring our own backyard. Proxima Centauri is the Sun’s closest neighbour, but reaching it with current rocket technology would take approximately 12,000 years.
In 2016, the Breakthrough Starshot initiative suggested an alternative: use massive laser arrays on Earth to propel a fleet of miniature, ultra-light space probes. These probes would be attached to lightsails: large sheets of reflective material that are driven by photons rather than wind.
Travelling at 20% of the speed of light — a blistering pace of over 200 million km/hr — the probes would reach Proxima Centauri in just 20 years, soaring through the system and beaming home data, including images of the potentially Earthlike planet Proxima b.
In a new paper published in Nature Materials, US researchers discuss one of the major design challenges of this project: the lightsail. Materials scientist Harry Atwater and his team from the California Institute of Technology do not propose building the system, but rather consider whether it is even feasible.
Dead on arrival. To read more, click here.