{"id":58281,"date":"2024-05-07T08:42:07","date_gmt":"2024-05-07T08:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/d7b1aeb9-44d7-43d5-83f7-ad5390dc288c"},"modified":"2024-05-07T09:08:21","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T09:08:21","slug":"spacecraft-powered-by-light-sails-and-lasers-offer-a-quicker-way-to-explore-the-solar-system-but-theres-a-catch","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/rss_feed\/spacecraft-powered-by-light-sails-and-lasers-offer-a-quicker-way-to-explore-the-solar-system-but-theres-a-catch\/","title":{"rendered":"Spacecraft powered by light sails and lasers offer a quicker way to explore the Solar System. But there’s a catch."},"content":{"rendered":"

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By <\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 07 May 2024 at 08:42 AM<\/p>

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Light sails are a mainstay (if you\u2019ll excuse the nautical pun) of science fiction.<\/p>

Arthur C Clarke\u2019s classic short story Sunjammer<\/em> describes a space yachting race, The Mote in God\u2019s Eye<\/em> by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle has an alien probe propelled by a laser sail arriving in human space, and they feature in the Star Trek<\/em> universe too.<\/p>

The principle is simple enough.<\/p>

Artist’s impression of a light sail spacecraft being propelled by photons from the Sun. Credit: Mark Garlick \/ Science Photo Library \/ Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>
A very large, very thin and very lightweight sheet of shiny material reflects photons of sunlight.<\/p>
Through the conservation of momentum, this makes it experience a force pushing it in the opposite direction.<\/p>
Alternatively, if you want to travel out of the Solar System away from the Sun, you could build a base station with some colossally high-powered lasers to drive a light sail.<\/p>
In this way, a light sail is not blown by a wind but rides on radiation pressure.<\/p>
The effect is small, but it consumes no rocket fuel and can be exploited continuously for months or years to gently accelerate to considerable speeds.<\/p>
$\"Could$
Could light sails be used to visit outer planets Uranus and Neptune? Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech<\/figcaption><\/figure>
Light sails a reality<\/strong><\/h2>
The idea of light sails propelling spaxecraft isn\u2019t merely speculative.<\/p>
The first spacecraft to demonstrate solar sail technology was Japan\u2019s experimental spacecraft IKAROS<\/a> (Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun), which voyaged to Venus<\/a> in 2010.<\/p>
Laser-powered light sails are a particularly attractive prospect for sending probes to explore the outer Solar System.<\/p>
Compared to the traditional propulsion of rocket engines, they can be a much lower overall mass and thus expense, because they don\u2019t have to carry lots of onboard fuel<\/p>
And they offer much quicker flight times as, although the acceleration is slower than traditional fuel, it can reach much higher final velocities.\u00a0<\/p>
**Light sails and the Solar System<\/strong><\/h2>** $\"Light$
Light sails could help spacecraft get to key destinations like Jupiter’s moon Europa much quicker. Credit: Image data: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/SwRI\/MSSS Image processing: Kevin M. Gill CC BY 3.0 Full Image Details<\/figcaption><\/figure>
Manasvi Lingam, at the Florida Institute of Technology, and his two colleagues associatedwith the Initiative for Interstellar Studies in London (housed in the British Interplanetary Society building), investigated the practicalities of light sail probes to explore the icy moons of the gas giants.<\/p>
Assuming a probe mass of 100kg (220lb) and a light sail around 100 metres (328ft) across, Lingam\u2019s team calculate such a spacecraft could be accelerated to over 100,000km\/h (62,137mph).<\/p>
That would make them able to reach Jupiter<\/a>\u2019s Europa in just one to four years, and Saturn\u2019s Enceladus on a timescale of three to six years.<\/p>
By comparison, the Cassini\u2013Huygens mission<\/a> took over six years to fly to Saturn, and required gravity assists from two fly-bys of Venus, one of Earth and another of Jupiter.<\/p>
$\"A$
A laser array in Antarctica? Such a prospect makes light sails somewhat less appealing. Credit: Galen Rowell \/ Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>
But here’s the catch<\/strong><\/h2>
The scheme would require the construction of a high-powered laser array on Earth in the order of a gigawatt: roughly the output of a nuclear power station.<\/p>
And there\u2019s another particular challenge: where such a large ground installation would need to be built.<\/p>
For propelling a light sail to Enceladus, because Saturn\u2019s orbit around the Sun is inclined by 2.5\u00b0 out of Earth\u2019s orbital plane, the best location for the laser station so that it can continuously target the light sail would be at high latitude \u2013 either the far north or the far south.<\/p>
For launching a light sail probe to Saturn and Enceladus between 2043 and 2052, for example, the laser array would need to be built in Antarctica.<\/p>
So while a laser-powered light sail might be practical in some ways, there are some definite problems to work out with such a system.<\/p>
***Lewis Dartnell was reading <\/em>A Light Sail Astrobiology Precursor Mission to Enceladus and Europa by Manasvi Lingam, Adam Hibberd and Andreas M Hein. Read it online at:*** ***arxiv.org\/abs\/2402.18691<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>***
***This article appeared in the June 2024 issue of BBC Sky at Night Magazine.<\/em><\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n***
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