In a forward-looking article, George Church, PhD, from Harvard University and the Wyss Institute, proposes the use of picogram to nanogram-scale probes that can land, replicate, and produce a communications module at the destination to explore nearby stars.
The fascinating new article is published in a special issue on “Interstellar Objects in Astrobiology” of the peer-reviewed journal Astrobiology.
“One design is a highly reflective light sail, traveling a long straight line toward the gravitational well of a destination star, and the photo-deflected to the closest non-luminous mass – ideally a planet or moon with exposed liquid water,” states Dr. Church.
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