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Tiny spacecraft could travel across interstellar space with this 'trampoline' lightsail
"The lightsail will travel faster than any previous spacecraft, with potential to eventually open interstellar distances to direct spacecraft exploration."
Launched in 2016 by the late Stephen Hawking and tech investor Yuri Milner, Breakthrough Starshot aims to send miniature probes to Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to Earth. The plan relies on high-powered lasers on Earth pushing delicate sail-driven probes in the cosmos like the wind does for sailboats here on the planet, allowing the craft to achieve record-breaking speeds without the need for a chemical propellant. The study's lead authors, postdoctoral scholar Lior Michaeli and graduate student Ramon Gao, built a specialized setup called a common-path interferometer.
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