solar sail

when travelling great distances in the universe, humans are yet to come up with the shit that was shown in starwars. here, we have an option of a large, medium or small interstellar probes. the first is about 10,000 kgs, second 2,500 and the third is a small probe of about 500 kgs, attached to a simple sail. not surprisingly, the third one seems to be the best, as source of energy is the biggest set back wen one is travelling from milkyway to other ways.

solar sail is a sail attached to a small probe - about 500 kgs - that can travel great distance in the universe. the sail is made of mirror or similar material, about 500 mts long and a density of 1gm/sqm, that acts as a sail - just like tht of a small boat.



The probe, launched from earth, will fly towards the sun. when it reaches the vicinity of mercury, the heat rays of the sun will hit the sail and send it back to where it came, and beyond. using the sail, the probe will go to the exterior of our galaxy, somewhere near or even past Pluto, and then proceed further using its own energy source.

thus, by capturing the momentum of sun's rays, the probe gets the kickstart it needs to traverse the long distances. scientists speculate it might be able to travel as much as 15 AU per year. AU is the distance between sun and earth.

this is only at the conceptual stage, and might fly in another decade or so..