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We Could Send A Spacecraft To Our Closest Stars With Electron Beams, Physicists Suggest
IFL Science ^ | January 08, 2025 | James Felton

Posted on 01/08/2025 6:41:26 AM PST by Red Badger

Using this method, the probe could potentially reach the star system in decades.

Proxima centauri, captured by Hubble. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

A team of physicists has outlined a possible way of sending probes deep into interstellar space within a reasonable timescale, using relativistic electron beams.

Space is that annoying combination of "really cool" and "really big". We can see really awesome stuff going on out there, but unless we come up with ways to significantly improve our propulsion methods, we aren't going to be taking a look at them any time soon.

Traveling at the speed of Voyager, it would take over 73,000 years to reach our nearest star, Proxima Centauri. Even if we had solid evidence of life on Proxima Centauri b – the planet discovered in Proxima Centauri's habitable zone – it would be tough to persuade someone to commit their ancestors to travel through space on a generation ship for longer than it took humanity to go from just a few thousand people to 7.674 billion.

In 2016, the long-term project Breakthrough Starshot was set up to figure out a way that we could do the next best thing; send a probe to the Alpha Centauri system, potentially to photograph it before returning to Earth.

VIDEO AT LINK...............

Early designs, which rely on components getting small and light enough to propel with relative ease, proposed that scientists could propel the small craft using a light sail and a directed laser, while later suggestions have involved firing elementary particles or microwaves at the probe. The problem with these ideas, according to the new paper, is that the cost of running the source beam is very high, and it is difficult to prevent the beam from spreading out, making it inefficient. Equally irritating is the fact that the further away from the source beam, the less power you can transfer to it.

"A current project, Breakthrough Starshot, envisions beam ranges on the order of 0.1 AU from a very large laser array that directly pushes on light sails. Using the energy of the beam to expel reaction mass from the vehicle requires less power for a given thrust than using the beam momentum directly for missions where the total velocity change is much less than the beam velocity," the team explains in their paper. "However, neither mode of operation fundamentally changes the tradeoff requirements for beams."

Attempting to work around this problem, the team suggested alternative methods of accelerating crafts using a solar sail using electrons accelerated to relativistic speeds. At these speeds they can experience a "relativistic pinch", an effect well-studied in particle accelerator and beam physics, which the team believes would help stop the spreading problem.

"In the frame of reference co-moving with the electron beam, this can be thought of as relativistic time dilation; there is not enough time in the beam frame for the space charge to spread the beam very far," the team explains. "Or, in a frame of reference at rest with respect to the Sun, one can think of these as relativistic increases in the electron momentum effectively reducing the charge-to-mass ratio of the electrons, again slowing the spread of the beam."

Accelerating the beam up to relativistic speeds, and keeping it directed at the target probe, would be somewhat of a challenge, and is still not something that will take place any time soon. The team suggests that the most promising idea is a "solar statite", or a hypothetical craft that uses its own solar sail to modify its orbit of the Sun. With this maneuverability, it could have a continuous view of the probe it is directing the beam at. Using this method, we could potentially reduce travel time to decades, rather than millennia.

Though this could potentially make the project feasible without too many advancements, some will still be necessary before we can send a probe to our nearest stars, and potentially habitable planets.

"By using thermoelectric conversion in a near-solar statite, large, GW-class beam infrastructure can potentially be launched in the near term without waiting for the industrialization of near-Earth space," the team concludes. "However, the usefulness of this approach depends on the discovery of a high-specific-power means of reception and conversion of that energy, either as beamed momentum or to eject reaction mass or push on the interplanetary medium as reaction mass."

The study is published in the journal Acta Astronautica.


TOPICS: Astronomy; Military/Veterans; Science; UFO's; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: 1pt21gigawatts; alphacentauri; alphacentauria; alphacentaurib; alphacentauric; astronomy; betacentauri; breakthroughstarshot; electronbeams; jamesfelton; laser; lasers; physics; proximacentauri; proximacentaurib; relativisticpinch; relativity; science; solarsail; timedilation; tiredlight; xplanets
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To: Red Badger

Ok, that may work for sending a spacecraft - but how do we get it back?

What happens to humans inside it?

How do we communicate with the craft when it’s light-years away? Just wait light-years for a reply?

Duh.......


41 posted on 01/08/2025 7:47:47 AM PST by Arlis
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To: Arlis

Quantum Communications......................


42 posted on 01/08/2025 7:57:04 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: jerod

“The problem with ‘Physicist’ is that their heads are full of protons, neutrons and electrons... What they aren’t full of is any common sense.”

Without physicists you wouldn’t have the capability to post such stupid comments.


43 posted on 01/08/2025 7:57:13 AM PST by TexasGator (1/|1211i.11'1/'1/11111)
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To: Red Badger

It seems they could test this technology by sending a small probe to the moon or Mars. They have to figure out stopping, landing and/or returning and countless other issues.


44 posted on 01/08/2025 8:00:36 AM PST by plain talk
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To: Red Badger

Does the space probe accelerate to the halfway point and then start braking the next half?


45 posted on 01/08/2025 8:03:24 AM PST by Doctor Congo
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To: Red Badger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8lT1o0sDwI
46 posted on 01/08/2025 8:46:13 AM PST by P8riot (You will never know Jesus Christ as a reality in your life until you know Him as a necessity.)
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To: TexasGator

I’m pretty sure that if no physicist had ever existed, I would still be here.

In fact... I am here despite those physicist who have created weapons of such mass destruction that they will likely eliminate the majority of life on earth if they are ever used. They haven’t been used... Yet!

Wait for it.


47 posted on 01/08/2025 9:10:50 AM PST by jerod (Nazis were essentially Socialist in Hugo Boss uniforms... Get over it!)
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To: jerod

“I’m pretty sure that if no physicist had ever existed, I would still be here.

In fact... I am here despite those physicist who have created weapons of such mass destruction that they will likely eliminate the majority of life on earth if they are ever used. They haven’t been used... Yet!

Wait for it.”

How old are you? You sound like the radicals of the 60’s.


48 posted on 01/08/2025 9:16:30 AM PST by TexasGator (1/|1211i.11'1/'1/11111)
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To: TexasGator

There is nothing radical about it... I’m fully aware that nuclear weapons have prevented war since 1945... But I’m also fully aware and not too foolish to think that some bonehead who may not even be born yet, will eventually use those weapons.

You can’t dis-invent the wheel... They’re round everywhere and used everywhere and somebody will eventually use those weapons. Hopefully not in my lifetime, but in somebodies and after they are we are done as a species... We won’t be travelling to any star system anytime ever.


49 posted on 01/08/2025 9:24:55 AM PST by jerod (Nazis were essentially Socialist in Hugo Boss uniforms... Get over it!)
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To: jerod

https://www.quora.com/How-accurate-is-the-movie-The-Forecaster-to-Martin-Armstrongs-life

Where were you in 1945?


50 posted on 01/08/2025 9:30:25 AM PST by TexasGator (1/|1211i.11'1/'1/11111)
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To: jerod

“I’m pretty sure that if no physicist had ever existed, I would still be here.

In fact... I am here despite those physicist who have created weapons of such mass destruction “

Those events changed history. If you were born after 1945 you owe your existence to that altered history.


51 posted on 01/08/2025 10:05:05 AM PST by TexasGator (1/|1211i.11'1/'1/11111)
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To: Red Badger

Thailand.......?


52 posted on 01/08/2025 10:08:31 AM PST by Lazamataz (The BEST birthday present I ever got WAS DONALD TRUMP WINNING IN 2024!!!)
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To: TexasGator

And if a caveman stepped on a certain butterfly that would’ve changed history too... The what ifs are enormous... But time travel never happened and never will... If it did, we would know it by now.


53 posted on 01/08/2025 11:07:52 AM PST by jerod (Nazis were essentially Socialist in Hugo Boss uniforms... Get over it!)
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To: wildcard_redneck

This will cut the trip to the nearest star system from 100,000 years down to just 90,000 years. Oh, and then add on another 90,000 years for the return trip to earth when the crew finds out that the star system has NO habitable planets.


54 posted on 01/08/2025 11:19:08 AM PST by PJ-Comix (Yes, I am the Toxic Troll Terminator)
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To: Red Badger

Good thinking...
A worthwhile research and development effort...

OTOH, in addition, maybe that group that claimed to identify the the “shape” of a photon could design the engine-beam photons into arrowheads so that beam spreading would be resolved...


55 posted on 01/08/2025 11:48:10 AM PST by SuperLuminal
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To: SuperLuminal

Why does beam spreading happen in the first place? Even laser light does it, just on a smaller scale, but why?

According to physics, it’s the ‘wave-like’ property of light that causes it.

But light has two properties, the other being the ‘particle-like’ property.

The photons are reacting with something...................


56 posted on 01/08/2025 11:56:55 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: libertylover
“… Trump doesn’t want to attack Greenland, he wants to buy it. …”

.

That’s even MORE idiotic.
The US can NOT afford it.
The US national debt now threatens to swallow the entire solar system!
Hello! Is anybody home?

57 posted on 01/08/2025 12:27:07 PM PST by GaltAdonis ( )
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To: Red Badger
Or not.

Super-Fast Space Travel Would Kill You in Minutes

Speed kills. Literally.

58 posted on 01/08/2025 12:36:08 PM PST by Paal Gulli
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To: Red Badger

YES! Electron beams!!! That should scare the aliens.


59 posted on 01/08/2025 1:19:14 PM PST by DannyTN
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To: GaltAdonis

I didn’t say we could afford Greenland, I said Trump won’t attack Greenland.

Now you say you’d rather attack Greenland than buy it. You must be crazy.


60 posted on 01/08/2025 1:36:52 PM PST by libertylover (Our biggest problem, by far, is that almost all of big media is AGENDA-DRIVEN, not-truth driven.)
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