Laser-sail experiments test a route to nearby stars, while research reveals major barriers to interstellar missions.

"There is a silence in the night sky that has bothered me for as long as I can remember." That observation, attributed to American physicist Richard Feynman, captures a tension many people feel when ...

Compact sensor-packed probes, propelled by laser- or Sun-powered sails, could be humanity's first scouts to another star system. Reading time 4 minutes The recent confirmation of an atmosphere around ...

A spacecraft that could reach the nearest star system in about 20 years would need to travel at a meaningful fraction of the speed of light. No existing technology comes close. But a team at Texas A&M ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. The night sky looks crowded, but physics may keep distant civilizations from ever meeting or even noticing one another. (CREDIT: ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. A mysterious interstellar visitor traipsing through our solar system known as 3I/ATLAS has captivated the public for months, and ...

On Friday, April 17, 2026, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) sent commands to deactivate one of the few remaining science instruments aboard Voyager 1. The decision to shut down the ...

An SwRI-led study sheds light on the deceleration of the solar wind as it journeys away from the Sun and interacts with and picks up interstellar material. NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft measured the ...

Eventually, we'll launch a mission dedicated solely to studying an interstellar object. When that day comes, which one should we look at first? Reading time 8 minutes With all we’re finding out about ...