Microscopic spaceships could search for extraterrestrial life

Physicist Stephen Hawking, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Russian internet billionaire Yuri Milner have announced a project that could send microscopic spaceships to hunt for extraterrestrial life in the far reaches of space.

The $100 million (€88 million) project, known as Breakthrough Starshot, will examine the possibility of sending a host of tiny spacecraft far beyond the boundaries of our solar system to our nearest neighbour, the Alpha Centauri star system.

Nanocraft

The project aims to find out whether the “nanocraft”, each weighing far less than an ounce, could fly at one-fifth of the speed of light and capture images of possible planets and other scientific data.

Current spacecraft would take about 30,000 years to get to Alpha Centauri, which is 25 trillion miles, or 4.37 light years, away.

But the nanocraft, powered by a sail pushed by a light beam, could potentially travel the distance more than 1,000 times faster and make the journey in 20 years.

The project is the latest part of Mr Milner’s years-long search for extraterrestrial life.

PA