August 2018
Flying to the stars
... in velocity. Gram-sized Andromeda interstellar probe concept by the Initiative for Interstellar Studies, approaching the Alpha Centauri star system. The concept was developed for Breakthrough Starshot in early 2016. Propulsion systems How can...
November 2018
How many people does it take to colonise an exoplanet?
... - as far as exoplanets go It takes light a little over four years to cover the distance between Earth and Proxima Centauri b. Our current spacecraft technology cannot reach even a pitiful fraction of this speed: at the average velocity of Apollo...
August 2020
Interstellar aspirations
... possible - or about 20 percent of light speed. At 60,000 km/sec it would take just over 20 years to reach the Alpha Centauri system, which is 4.3 light years away. A distinguished panel was assembled with Avi Loeb of Harvard University as chair...
November 2020
The alien hunter’s field manual
... signatures of life, and imaging oceans and continents. Its first target will be Proxima b, an exoplanet in the Proxima Centauri star system. The first class of biosignature only tells us that microbial life is present, but nothing else...
25 September 2017
Boldly going in search of another pale blue dot
... going on a hunt for habitable Earth-size planets in the Alpha Centauri system using a state-of the-art space telescope; but they will not... plans and to share scientific results on Alpha Centauri and any discovered exoplanets. Project Blue will also...
08 May 2019
Tests start on first design of 'wafer scale' spacecraft
... not more. With a large enough laser array, you’d be at Alpha Centauri in something like 20 years, says Rupert - this is a fraction of ...off in the direction of our nearest exoplanet, Proxima Centauri b, but it is aiming for a suborbital first flight...
