Physicists have proposed a new way to deliver spacecraft to nearby stars in a relatively short time using relativistic electron beams. The study was published in the journal Acta Astronautica, writes IFLScience.

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If we don't improve the way we move through space, dreams of reaching even the closest stars may remain just dreams.. The closest star to us, Proxima Centauri, is approximately 4 light years away.. The potentially habitable planet Proxima Centauri b revolves around it. To study both the planet and the star at close range, you need to send a space probe there.

If this probe were to fly at the speed of, for example, the most distant human spacecraft, Voyager 1, the journey would take more than 70,000 years..

Now there are ideas that involve sending spacecraft to the stars at a relatively high speed, equipped with a light sail using a laser beam. This beam should push the sail and allow the probe to gain very high speed to move through space.

But such projects provide that the size and weight of the space probe will be small, which means it cannot accommodate many scientific instruments. Therefore, such a probe cannot collect much valuable information about nearby stars and their planets. On the other hand, the cost of launching such a laser beam is quite high and such a beam will also be scattered over a large distance, which reduces its effectiveness.

Existing designs, which rely on the use of a light sail and a laser beam, suggest that the beam can effectively push the probe only up to a distance of 0.1 astronomical units, while the walking distance to Proxima Centauri is approximately 270,000 astronomical units. Although even such a small distance should be enough to accelerate the spacecraft to a very high speed. But the laser beam, as already mentioned, will be scattered, and therefore there is no guarantee that the probe will reach the nearest star in a reasonable time.

Therefore, physicists proposed using rays of electrons or electron beams, which would be accelerated to relativistic speed, to move a large probe with a light sail. This is a speed that is close to the speed of light. In this way, it will be possible to send a probe of much larger size and mass to nearby stars..

According to physicists, such a beam will allow the probe to accumulate more energy and its speed can be up to 10% of the speed of light.. Electrons are relatively easy to accelerate to speeds close to the speed of light. And electron beam scattering can be avoided using an effect well studied in particle accelerators.

Scientists' calculations show that such a beam will be able to push a space probe to a distance of 100 and even 1000 astronomical units. Thus, thanks to the obtained speed, the probe will be able to reach the star Proxima Centauri in about 40 years.

But accelerating the electron beam to relativistic speeds and keeping it pointed directly at the probe is still a problem that needs to be solved, physicists say.

To create such a beam, a lot of energy is needed, and therefore scientists propose placing another spacecraft close to the Sun, which will revolve around our star and create the necessary electron beam, which will be directed at the probe flying to the stars.

According to scientists, minimal improvements to existing technologies will allow humanity to quickly reach the nearest stars.

As Focus already wrote, the United States may lose the space race to China. At NASA about the implementation of an ambitious mission to Mars, which may take place later than the same Chinese mission.

Focus also wrote that perhaps the brightest comet of this year will soon be visible in the night sky. It will approach the Sun for the first time in 135 thousand years.