Washington, D.C. –“We’re back!” said Louis Friedman, Executive Director of The Planetary Society. “With an even more ambitious solar sail program than our last venture.” The Planetary Society today ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Interstellar travel has long been a dream, but getting to the stars is incredibly difficult. A new project is bringing the space ...

The Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 is a winner of the 2024 Gizmodo Science Fair for testing the feasibility of using photons from the Sun as a form of propulsion for satellites. Can solar sailing ...

Traveling the vast distances between solar systems is well beyond existing technology. But a new ultra-thin lightsail designed with AI could make it possible to reach the nearest star within 20 years.

Powered by laser light, this tiny sail lays the groundwork for future advances in lightsail technology and the potential for interstellar propulsion. Reading time 3 minutes A team of researchers at ...

The idea of traveling through interstellar space using spacecraft propelled by ultrathin sails may sound like the stuff of sci-fi novels. But in fact, a program started in 2016 by Stephen Hawking and ...

Why is Christian Science in our name? Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and we’ve always been transparent about that. The church publishes the ...

Can lightsails be the future of deep space exploration? This is what a recent study published in Nature Photonics hopes to address as a team of researchers from the California Institute of Technology ...

“LightSail-1 and its parent satellite, Prox-1, are scheduled to hitch a ride to orbit aboard SpaceX’s new Falcon Heavy rocket,” wrote the Planetary Society’s Jason Davis. “LightSail-1 will be released ...