Astrophysicist Proposes Paperclip-Sized Spacecraft Could Travel at Lightspeed to a Black Hole (sciencedaily.com)
(Sunday August 10, 2025 @05:25PM (EditorDavid)
from the floating-round-my-tin-can dept.)
- Reference: 0178636828
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/08/10/2124249/astrophysicist-proposes-paperclip-sized-spacecraft-could-travel-at-lightspeed-to-a-black-hole
- Source link: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/08/250810093236.htm
"It sounds like science fiction: a spacecraft, no heavier than a paperclip, propelled by a laser beam," writes [1]this report from ScienceDaily , "and hurtling through space at the speed of light toward a black hole, on a mission to probe the very fabric of space and time and test the laws of physics."
"But to astrophysicist and black hole expert Cosimo Bambi, the idea is not so far-fetched."
> Reporting [2]in the Cell Press journal iScience , Bambi outlines the blueprint for turning this interstellar voyage to a black hole into a reality... "We don't have the technology now," says author Cosimo Bambi of Fudan University in China. "But in 20 or 30 years, we might." The mission hinges on two key challenges — finding a black hole close enough to target and developing probes capable of withstanding the journey.
>
> Previous knowledge on how stars evolve suggests that there could be a black hole lurking just 20 to 25 light-years from Earth, but finding it won't be easy, says Bambi. Because black holes don't emit or reflect light, they are virtually invisible to telescopes... "There have been new techniques to discover black holes," says Bambi. "I think it's reasonable to expect we could find a nearby one within the next decade...."
>
> Bambi points to nanocrafts — gram-scale probes consisting of a microchip and light sail — as a possible solution. Earth-based lasers would blast the sail with photons, accelerating the craft to a third of the speed of light. At that pace, the craft could reach a black hole 20 to 25 light-years away in about 70 years. The data it gathers would take another two decades to get back to Earth, making the total mission duration around 80 to 100 years... Bambi notes that the lasers alone would cost around one trillion euros today, and the technology to create a nanocraft does not yet exist. But in 30 years, he says that costs may fall and technology may catch up to these bold ideas.
"If the nanocraft can travel at a velocity close to the speed of light, the mission could last 40-50 years," Bambi [3]writes in the article , while acknowledging his idea is certainly very speculative and extremely challenging..."
"However, we should realize that most of the future experiments in particle physics and astrophysics will likely require long time (for preparation, construction, and data collection) and the work of a few generations of scientists, be very expensive, and in many cases, we will not have other options if we want to make progress in a certain field."
[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/08/250810093236.htm
[2] https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(25)01403-8
[3] https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(25)01403-8
"But to astrophysicist and black hole expert Cosimo Bambi, the idea is not so far-fetched."
> Reporting [2]in the Cell Press journal iScience , Bambi outlines the blueprint for turning this interstellar voyage to a black hole into a reality... "We don't have the technology now," says author Cosimo Bambi of Fudan University in China. "But in 20 or 30 years, we might." The mission hinges on two key challenges — finding a black hole close enough to target and developing probes capable of withstanding the journey.
>
> Previous knowledge on how stars evolve suggests that there could be a black hole lurking just 20 to 25 light-years from Earth, but finding it won't be easy, says Bambi. Because black holes don't emit or reflect light, they are virtually invisible to telescopes... "There have been new techniques to discover black holes," says Bambi. "I think it's reasonable to expect we could find a nearby one within the next decade...."
>
> Bambi points to nanocrafts — gram-scale probes consisting of a microchip and light sail — as a possible solution. Earth-based lasers would blast the sail with photons, accelerating the craft to a third of the speed of light. At that pace, the craft could reach a black hole 20 to 25 light-years away in about 70 years. The data it gathers would take another two decades to get back to Earth, making the total mission duration around 80 to 100 years... Bambi notes that the lasers alone would cost around one trillion euros today, and the technology to create a nanocraft does not yet exist. But in 30 years, he says that costs may fall and technology may catch up to these bold ideas.
"If the nanocraft can travel at a velocity close to the speed of light, the mission could last 40-50 years," Bambi [3]writes in the article , while acknowledging his idea is certainly very speculative and extremely challenging..."
"However, we should realize that most of the future experiments in particle physics and astrophysics will likely require long time (for preparation, construction, and data collection) and the work of a few generations of scientists, be very expensive, and in many cases, we will not have other options if we want to make progress in a certain field."
[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/08/250810093236.htm
[2] https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(25)01403-8
[3] https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(25)01403-8
Getting a signal back? (Score:2)
by cirby ( 2599 )
It's going to be the biggest handwavium of the whole project, unless we discover a near-zero-energy way to bridge those light-years..
Variation of Breakthrough initatives Starshot (Score:2)
by Pinky's Brain ( 1158667 )
This is a variation on the theme of the Breakthrough initiatives Starshot, which has slightly (but only slightly) more exploration of the problems involved. I was wondering how they wanted to get data back, their suggestion is to launch a lot more nanocraft as relays. Makes sense.
[1]https://breakthroughinitiative... [breakthrou...atives.org]
[1] https://breakthroughinitiatives.org/
80 to 100 years (Score:2)
Assuming that there is a black hole that close, which I personally think is doubtful given interstellar distances, 80 to 100 years. Also, how is a craft that small supposed to make any useful measurements or have a transmitter powerful enough to send a signal back? Even if it could what are the odds that 100 years later anyone would remember to be listening? This one of the ideas that sounds sort of reasonable on paper, but it practice is pretty useless.
Re: (Score:1)
Well, theoretically with a pair of quantum-entangled electrons or something like that, one in the probe and one at a base on earth, you might be able to measure by proxy... I dunno, something relevant at least, near or even slightly past the event horizon. You'd probably have to do this a whole bunch of times to get a big enough data set to infer any meaningful conclusions from it though. Still, could be interesting if we could somehow solve the larger problem you bring up, which is needing to extend the at