Lightsails are ultra-thin, reflective structures that use laser-driven radiation pressure to propel spacecraft at high speeds. Unlike conventional nanotechnology, which miniaturizes devices in all ...

That said, going deep into space isn’t the only way lightsails might be useful for human explorers. Lightsails could also be used to clean up space, which is the main way that the European Space ...

A team of scientists has made the first experimental measurements of laser-induced motions of miniature lightsails in the lab. The idea of traveling through interstellar space using spacecraft ...

The concept is to use lasers to propel miniature space probes attached to "lightsails" to reach ultrafast speeds and ...

In a Nature Communications article published in late March, researchers announced that they had created a more efficient way to design and manufacture lightsails — light-reflecting, lightweight ...

That propulsion happens because wind hitting the sail bounces off, creating pressure. Lightsails aren't all that different. "When the photons hit our lightsail, they get reflected and they also ...

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 ...

Scientists at the California Institute of Technology have taken a major step toward developing lightsails that could one day carry tiny spacecraft to distant star systems. The new findings detail ...

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Get Instant Summarized Text (Gist) Scalable nanotechnology-based lightsails have been developed, offering significant advancements in space exploration and experimental physics. These ultra-thin ...