A few months ago Stephen Hawking and Russian billionaireYuri Milner made an amazing statement that they want to construct a fleet of
interstellar spacecraft that can move at relativistic speeds—almost 20 percent
the speed of light. And according to their announcement, after building this
Nano spacecraft they will send it to our nearest star system, Alpha Centauri.
This may seem a little far-fetched but the technology Hawking and Milner are
offering could revolutionize the hunt for alien life even within our solar
system. Here is how:
Avi Loeb, chair of the Harvard astronomy department and a
collaborator on Breakthrough Starshot, told Gizmodo “This basically opens the
door to missions that are much less expensive and cumbersome, that will allow
us to get information currently not retrievable”. This “currently
unretrievable” information might include the first solid indication of
extraterrestrial life. Right now out space exploration is completely dependent
on large, expensive and slow spacecrafts. The recent missions like Cassini,
Rosetta, New Horizons and Voyager have already revealed numerous wonders right
in our cosmic backyard, but each one these missions has taken years if not
decades of investment and planning to pull off.
Our solar system contains countless comets and asteroids
that comprise both water and simple organic molecules. Several astrobiologists
speculate that the key building blocks of life were transported to Earth via
rogue space rocks. And there is solid chance that within these frozen time
capsules, we could easily find answers to the question of whether we’re alone
in this vast universe. Currently we simply don’t have resources to visit them
all.
Now that’s where Stephen Hawking’s Breakthrough Starshot
comes in. The project, which was announced few days ago with a $100 million
primary investment, targets to build spacecraft that weigh just a few grams but
transport scientific gear capable of performing every task from taking
photographs to examining biological samples.
Driven by meter-sized, razor-thin lightsails, Milner’s
“nanocraft” would not only be just as cheap as NASA missions are expensive and
precious but also expandable. By shooting them out of orbit with a 100 Gigawatt
laser pulse, we can, theoretically, accelerate the tiny spaceships to 20
percent the speed of light.
Pete Worden, executive director of Breakthrough Starshot and
the former director of NASA’s Ames Research Center told Gizmodo “The ability to
build very very small spacecraft and send them at high speeds gives us the
ability to send a lot of spacecraft to a lot of places. Asteroids might be a
place where there’s lots of evidence of life. This enables us to sample
thousands if not hundreds of thousands of them.”
With this we can not only visit lots of comets and
asteroids, but also flying at relativistic speeds would provide the ability to
travel anywhere in the solar system in days.
Just imagine if researchers detected an eruption on the
surface of Europa—it’s occurred before—and we could send a handful of
spacecraft to explore, right away.
And as we’re talking space geysers, let’s not forget to
mention Enceladus’ South Pole plume here. Scientists have been eager to send a
new mission there for past many years, one that could examine the alien salt
spray for signs of alien life. With the help of hawking’s Breakthrough
Starshot, we could send hundreds.
With machinery like that at our hands, the aliens won’t be
able to hide for long.
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