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Breakthrough Starshot: getting to Proxima Centauri b – Science Weekly podcast
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On 12 April 2016, Russian entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and physicist Yuri Milner announced a new and ambitious initiative called Breakthrough Starshot. Kickstarted with $100 million, the initiative aims to develop and demonstrate new technology, which will enable unmanned space flight at 20% of the speed of light, in the hope of laying the foundations for a mission to Alpha Centauri – our closest star system. But how does this proposed technology work? And what are some of the barriers and challenges in the way?
To explore this and more, Hannah Devlin speaks with Harvard University astrophysicist and chair of the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative Professor Avi Loeb, who explains how lasers on earth could theoretically propel spherical space sails and, eventually, send back photographs of Alpha Centauri’s exoplanets. We also hear from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology astrophysicist and planetary scientist Professor Sara Seager about the wider importance of ambitious initiatives like Breakthrough Starshot.
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