Alpha Centauri, the star system Breakthrough Starshot is aiming for. | ESO/L. Calçada/Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org)
2016 may be remembered as the year when the stars suddenly got a whole lot closer. On April 12, Russian-born entrepreneur Yuri Milner unveiled a bold program, Breakthrough Starshot. Its mission: to send a squadron of robotic space probes to the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, more than 25 trillion miles away. The probes would launch within 20 years and take another 20 years to reach their destination. The subsequent discovery of a roughly Earth-sized planet orbiting one of Centauri’s stars has given the mission an extra sense of purpose.
“Today is the day that space explorers have dreamed about,” said Starshot Executive Director Pete Worden, the former head of the NASA Ames Research Center. “The stars are finally within our reach.”
An illustration of the probes being propelled by an Earth-bound laser. | Breakthrough ...
