Tag: Interstellar flight
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‘Last Exit: Space’ highlights the questions and the quirkiness behind billionaire visions of leaving Earth
An artist’s conception shows a starship on a 5,000-year trip. (Jörgen Engdahl / Courtesy of Discovery+) Amazon founder Jeff Bezos wants to have millions of people living and working in space — that’s why he founded his Blue Origin space venture more than two decades ago. But what if living in space turns out to…
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NASA says its Voyager 2 probe has entered interstellar space, six years after Voyager 1
This illustration shows the positions of NASA’s Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes, outside of the heliosphere, a protective bubble created by the Sun that extends well past the orbit of Pluto. Sizes and distances are not shown to scale. Click on the image for a larger version. (NASA / JPL-Caltech Illustration) NASA says its…
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Breakthrough Listen will check interstellar object just to make sure it’s not a starship
An artist’s conception shows what the interstellar asteroid ‘Oumuamua might look like. (ESO Illustration / M. Kornmesser) Is that cigar-shaped, fast-moving interstellar object a spaceship? Almost certainly not, but Breakthrough Listen will check just to make sure. The Breakthrough Listen campaign, which checks celestial targets for radio signals from intelligent civilizations, will turn the Green Bank…
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Stephen Hawking’s latest doomsday prediction: Earth could go to hell by 2600
British physicist Stephen Hawking delved into cosmic mysteries in a Discovery Channel series titled “Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking.” (Credit: Discovery Channel) British physicist Stephen Hawking has warned repeatedly that Earth could well be doomed, but his latest warning gives us no more than 583 years before we get burned on Earth. During a…
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Stephen Hawking lays out plan for settling space, from moon and Mars to the stars
Physicist Stephen Hawking addresses an audience at the Starmus Festival via video. (Starmus via YouTube) British physicist Stephen Hawking has repeatedly warned us that we have just a century or two to move off Earth, and he just shared his vision for how to do it. Hawking laid out a timetable this week during a…
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How screenwriter Jon Spaihts worked the physics of starship travel into ‘Passengers’
The starship Avalon approaches Arcturus in a scene from “Passengers.” (Sony Pictures via YouTube) The science is under the hood in “Passengers,” a love story set on a giant starship – and screenwriter Jon Spaihts is the guy who put it there. Chances are most movie fans are going to the movie to see Hollywood stars…
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Shields up! Scientists tweak design of Alpha Centauri probes to minimize damage
An artist’s conception suggests how light from a battery of laser-equipped antennas can power a sail to the Alpha Centauri system. (Credit: Breakthrough Initiatives) The scientists behind the Breakthrough Starshot mission are already fine-tuning the design for their nano-probes to increase the odds they’ll survive the trip to Proxima Centauri b. In a paper posted…
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MSNW’s magnetoshell aerobraking system gets in on NASA’s way-out research fund
MSNW’s magnetoshell aerocapture concept could help ease spaceships into orbit. (Credit: MSNW) A system that would use magnetic fields to ease a spacecraft into orbit after an interplanetary journey has won a $500,000 grant from NASA’s advanced research program for MSNW, a company based in Redmond. Wash. The money for MSNW is one of eight…
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Billionaire Yuri Milner unveils $100 million start on Starshot mission to Alpha Centauri
An artist’s conception shows how a laser beam could propel a light sail outward toward Alpha Centauri. (Credit: Breakthrough Starshot) Fueled by an initial $100 million from Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, a team laden with big names laid out a multi-decade plan to send flurries of smartphone-sized probes to the Alpha Centauri system, powered by laser-driven…