| The famed physicist Stephen Hawking is partnering with Russian billionaire Yuri Milner to look for intelligent life with a fleet of postage stamp-sized spacecraft. | By Story Hinckley www.csmonitor.com 4-13-16 |
Do aliens exist? Using small spaceships the size of postage stamps, famous physicist Stephen Hawking, Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg plan to find out.
Through their $100-million project named Breakthrough Starshot, the three board members plan to send thousands of light-propelled nanocraft to Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to Earth. Traveling at 20 percent the speed of light, the nanocraft fleet would likely reach Alpha Centauri (which is 4.37 light years away) in the next 20 years.
Equipped with cameras and communication and navigation equipment, the nanocrafts will hopefully answer whether or not habitable planets – and even alien life – exists.
