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Artist's impression of the planet orbiting Proxima Centauri

Breakthrough Starshot, a $100 1000000 research program for designing light-propelled spacecraft, already has quite a list of luminary names involved with the project, including Freeman Dyson, Stephen Hawking, and Ann Druyan, with former NASA researcher Pete Worden on elevation. Now they can add together another to the rolls: the ESO. Breakthrough Starshot is going to upgrade the ESO's Very Large Telescope, in guild to utilize the VLT to chase for likely targets in the Alpha Centauri organization.

High in the Atacama, the VLT is actually an interferometer: an array of four eight-meter telescopes, placed so that their effective diameter is the separation between them. Each of the telescopes is named in a local indigenous language: Antu (the Lord's day), Kueyen (the Moon), Melipal (the Southern Cross), and Yepun (Venus – as the evening star). (I've been dying to tell someone that.)

The foreground of this image shows ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. The rich stellar backdrop to the picture includes the bright star Alpha Centauri, the closest stellar system to Earth. In late 2022 ESO signed an agreement with the Breakthrough Initiatives to adapt the VLT instrumentation to conduct a search for planets in the Alpha Centauri system. Such planets could be the targets for an eventual launch of miniature space probes by the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative.

The VLT, with Alpha Centauri highlighted in the background. Epitome: ESO

The VLT can do many things, just it's non a great planet hunter. The VLT'due south sensitivity means that the brightness of a star only drowns out its relatively tiny, dim planets similar a lens flare. And so Breakthrough Starshot is making a joint multi-function upgrade on Melipal, or equally it'southward officially designated, UT3. Melipal already has a mid-infrared instrument called VISIR. At present they're going to commodities on a coronagraph, which volition help mask the brightness of the stars in the Blastoff Centauri organisation so that researchers can encounter whether in that location are other planets like Proxima b, worth making the trip to gather data. Melipal is also getting a sweetness new set of adaptive optics.

505779main_C2_triple

This is what a coronagraph looks like: you can see what's happening around the star, but you don't have to be blinded past its glare. This is our dominicus, having a solar flare. Paradigm: NASA/SOHO

Going for maximum efficiency, Breakthrough Starshot plans to build a fleet of tiny, inexpensive SoCs — spacecraft on a fleck — which Milner calls nanocraft. They'll weigh but a few grams, and include "cameras, photon thrusters, power supply, navigation and communication equipment." They'll be using lasers for propulsion: a "phased array of lasers in the 100GW range" will provide the photon pressure to fill out tiny light sails on each nanocraft, sending the armada zipping toward Alpha Centauri at a tidy 20% C.

Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking announce $100 million Breakthrough Initiatives to dramatically accelerate search for intelligent life in the universe

Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking denote $100 1000000 Breakthrough Initiatives to dramatically accelerate search for intelligent life in the universe

Stephen Hawking spoke at the Breakthrough Starshot project launch. "I believe what makes us unique is transcending our limits," Hawking said. "Gravity pins us to the ground, only I just flew to America…How exercise we transcend these limits? With our minds and our machines. The limit that confronts usa now is the groovy void between us and the stars. Just now we can transcend it."