Researchers are Continuing to Scale Up Lightsails That Could Explore the Cosmos
It’s been almost 10 years since Breakthrough Starshot began funding research into interstellar missions. Back then, state of the art meant a tiny lightsail just 0.25mm across, skip forward to today and, following their funded research, a new prototype has been revealed measuring 60mm x 60mm and just 200 nanometres thick! We are not quite able to use it to hop to Proxima Centauri but the technology keeps advancing until that day arrives.

It’s been almost 10 years since Breakthrough Starshot began funding research into interstellar missions. Back then, state of the art meant a tiny lightsail just 0.25mm across, skip forward to today and, following their funded research, a new prototype has been revealed measuring 60mm x 60mm and just 200 nanometres thick! We are not quite able to use it to hop to Proxima Centauri but the technology keeps advancing until that day arrives.