Tiny Nanocraft May Sail to Neighboring Star System

Stephen Hawking and billionaire Yuri Milner on Tuesday unveiled Breakthrough Starship, an ambitious $100 million effort to send miniature spacecraft to another solar system, but the program might not be quite ready to fly. It calls for a team of engineering and astrophysics experts to develop nanocrafts with sails propelled by a light beam that would allow the devices to zoom to the Alpha Centauri star system at 20 percent the speed of light. The Alpha Centauri star system is 4.37 light years, or 25 trillion miles, from Earth.

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