Once upon a time, it was just a dream, a science fiction idea. Something that belonged to a distant and indeterminate future. But today, that dream is becoming reality. An extraordinary project is underway: a spacecraft will leave Earth for the nearest stars, those of the Alpha Centauri system. The mission will use a sail, inflated by a powerful beam of laser rays, which will propel the shuttle at the extraordinary speed of 20% of light. A daring, almost impossible, but concrete undertaking. And there is a part of this project that closely concerns Italy: the system that will manage the communication of scientific data, entrusted to the team of experts at the University of Padua, the university that was once attended by Galileo Galilei.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk dreams of taking humans to Mars. But the technology needed to reach speeds close to that of light is not suitable for humans, who would not survive such extreme acceleration. However, a slower, gentler pace could prove to be the key to the future of his space travel.
The project in which the University of Padua is participating is coordinated by Professor Paolo Villoresi and collaborates with the prestigious international project Breakthrough Starshot, a venture involving the brightest minds from institutions such as Caltech and MIT. The goal? To reach Proxima Centauri B, a planet 4.34 light years away from us, a world that could resemble Earth, perhaps capable of supporting life. But even at breakneck speed, the journey will take at least 30 years. Decades of acceleration and deceleration, amid the icy silence of interstellar space.
Despite the difficulties, once they arrive, the scientific data collected by the spacecraft will have to be transmitted back to Earth. This is where the system developed in Padua comes into play, an incredible device that transforms signals into light pulses, effectively creating a sort of “interstellar telephone” that connects us to the far reaches of the cosmos. This advanced space communication technology, using precisely directed light beams, will allow the spacecraft to call “home”, bringing the information it has collected back to our world.
But while data travels at the speed of light, the same fate is about to be sealed by a new initiative: Starbottle.
The two initiatives converge in a fascinating shared vision: a future in which cosmic distances are no longer an obstacle, and stars are not just objects in the sky, but stages in humanity's journey towards infinity.
After decades of waiting, perhaps the answer will come. But the Universe has its own timing. And we, patient and dreamers, are ready to listen to its silence.
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