A new spacecraft design increases the chances of finding extraterrestrial life

A new spacecraft design increases the chances of finding extraterrestrial life

Before you is an artistic vision of the planet Proxima Centauri b rotating around the red dwarf Proxima Centauri (the nearest star to the solar system). The Alpha Centauri AB double star is also visible between the planet and the star Proxima Centauri. The exoplanet is slightly more massive than the Earth and is located in the habitable zone, where the temperature is suitable for the presence of water in a liquid state on the surface.

What united Stephen Hawking, Mark Zuckerberg and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner? This trio dreamed of finding aliens in the Alpha Centauri system. Therefore, we created the project Breakthrough Starshot, whose main goal is to send a flock of nanosatellites to a distance of 4.37 light years. They need to be overclocked enough to get to the neighboring system for 20 years and explore the potentially inhabited worlds.

Such complex projects face many obstacles, one of which is inhibition. You can send a spacecraft with a fifth of the speed of light. However, if you do not slow them down at the target, you will get only blurry photos. Therefore, no braking is necessary, especially in the interstellar mission.

A new spacecraft design increases the chances of finding extraterrestrial life

The Hubble telescope was able to catch the bright glow of the nearest star - Proxima Centauri. Lives in the constellation Centaurus at a distance of 4 light years. It seems bright here, but it cannot be found with the naked eye. The average visibility is extremely low, and in terms of massiveness it reaches only the 8th part of the sun. But periodically, the brightness increases. Proxima falls into the category of flashing stars. That is, the processes of convection inside it lead to random changes in luminosity. It also hints at the long existence of the star. Scientists believe that it will remain at the stage of the main sequence of another 4 trillion years, which is 300 times higher than the modern universal age. The observations were made with a planetary camera 2 of the Hubble telescope. Proxima is included in the system with two members - A and B, not in the frame. Recently, researchers at the Max Planck Institute (Munich) reported that they had found a solution. In a new study, they described how to use the radiation and gravity of Alpha Centauri system stars to slow down nanosatellites and collect qualitative data. This would even allow the study to be expanded by shifting satellites to Proxima Centauri b - the closest potentially inhabited world.

The current design of the project is based on the use of sails for flight. The probe will be launched into space with the help of powerful lasers that move the sail using photons. If the technology works, then the spacecraft will not need engines and will be able to accelerate to 37359 miles per second.

In a new study, scientists are calling for replacing the laser matrix with a “photon” sail, which is driven by solar radiation, and then folded at maximum speed. True, the arrival time will change from 20 to 95 years, but this will slow down at the time of arrival to the star system.

A new spacecraft design increases the chances of finding extraterrestrial life

A large-scale view of Alpha Centauri created from images taken by the Digitized Sky Survey 2 project. The star seems large due to the scattering of light on the telescope optics, as well as photographic emulsion. This is the star system closest to us.

When the probes reach Alpha Centauri, the stellar gravity can be used to fly out of the system and continue collecting data. In fact, the probes will be able to move around all the stars of the Alpha Centauri system and return to the exoplanet we are interested in. All this would take a little less than 150 years. Is the mission worth such a long wait? It all depends on the goal. If we just want to prove the reality of interstellar flights, then we can leave everything at the present stage. If we are talking about research and the search for life on other planets, then the braking technology will provide qualitative data. We can get a lot of useful information, but our grandchildren will decipher it.

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