We could soon be able to take photographs of stars 75,000 years away after new technology was configured to speed the up the process using lasers, according to ANU astrophysicist and cosmologist Dr Brad Tucker.
“The fact that we’ve never even seen anything else besides a few planets in our own solar system up close is the exciting thing,” he told Sky News.
“At the current technology right now, it takes 75,000 years to get to the nearest star system but now with this idea of using a huge array of lasers to shoot at a sail and then blast that sail off into space we think that we could reach the next star in a couple of decades.”
Dr Tucker said the technology was “not that far off being achievable” because it uses technology which have already been developed such as lasers and light sails.
“If you can get to the next star system, we can take up-close photos of the star and the planets around it in a way that we just never even considered being an option.”
