New York – Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking presented today in New York a draft exploration of the universe that includes a new model of spacecraft and which promises to achieve the closest to our star system, alpha Centauri.
“to survive as a species, eventually we reach out to the stars, and today we commit to the next big man in the cosmos,” Hawking said in a press conference in a on the upper floors of the tallest skyscraper in New York.
the Intent Star ( ‘Breakthrough Starshot’) project will use an extremely light and thin material called lightsail that with the momentum of a laser beam projected from Earth , reach the nearest stars to our solar system in about 20 years since its release.
the billionaire Russian philanthropist Yuri Milner, which finances this new interstellar plan and who was present at the event, explained that the probe, the size of a microchip, theoretically could “navigate through space at 20% the speed of light”.
“to get an idea, the probe would go a million times faster than a car on the highway, “said Milner, who presented the ambitious plan for the exploration of the stars next to Hawking and other scientists collaborating in the initiative.
the space probe that will be shown directly to the stars will incorporate a set of cameras, sensors and other millimeter technology to “search for traces of life in the Universe” and transmit them back to Earth through a communication channel built.
the Alpha star system Centauri is 4.37 light years from Earth. With today’s fastest spacecraft would take 30.000 years to get there, while the ultralight probe presented today could fly a thousand times faster and reduce the space journey just 20 years.
For this space probe shooting with the alleged power, cosmologists announced that they will take advantage of the latest advances in nanotechnology, the power of light rays, increasingly larger and relatively cheap- and advances in photonics technology.
now, this is a project that still has no release date, although scientists did announce a budget of approximately 100 million dollars for this pilot project which, if completed successfully, would demonstrate “a new way to explore space “said Milner.
Both in his brief presentation and in the subsequent dialogue with journalists, Stephen Hawking, assisted by built his wheelchair and allows you to communicate with other computer, added that despite being a great “generational” initiative, the probability of finding intelligent life in space “it is low”.
But he also said, this is “an effort worthwhile.”
try Star will be led by the former director of the Ames research center of NASA, Pete Worden, and a team of engineers and scientists among them Ann Druyan, Freeman Dyson, Mae Jemison and Avi Loeb .
the project management will be led by Stephen Hawking with Yuri Milner and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who joined late in the project, explained Milner.
according to scientists they announced, if the tests were successful could be launched into space orbit thousands of these microchips to further explore the Universe.
the Russian scientist investor also finished the exhibition project a phrase that “summarizes” human interest generated by this initiative: “For the first time we can do more than see the stars. We can achieve them. “
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