A New Kind of Light Sail Brings Interstellar Travel One Step Closer

The idea of sending tiny spacecraft to another star system, not with rocket engines, but by riding a beam of light, may once have been science fiction, but new research published in Nature Communications is illuminating how the idea could become reality.

Led by Matthew Campbell, Research Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics (MEAM), Igor Bargatin, Associate Professor in MEAM, and Deep Jariwala, Peter and Susanne Armstrong Distinguished Scholar and Associate Professor in ESE, along with collaborators at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and UCLA, the research team leveraged a surprisingly simple driving force to power these light sails. READ MORE