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Black Hole Mission: The Trillion-Dollar Quest To Test Einstein

NONE, AUG 7 – Ultralight nanocrafts propelled by lasers could travel at a third of light speed to observe nearby black holes within 100 years, researchers say.

  • Soon, astrophysicist Cosimo Bambi of Fudan University published in iScience a plan for ultralight nanocrafts propelled by lasers to reach a black hole within about a century.
  • On April 10, 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope published the first-ever image of a black hole at Messier 87, followed by Sagittarius A* three years later.
  • Data show nanocrafts weigh about a gram with a 10-square-metre sail, attached to light sails propelled by a ground-based laser, aiming for speeds of up to 100 million miles an hour.
  • Without a nearer black hole, Bambi cautions a Hyades cluster mission would take at least 420 years, and potential black holes could lie 20 to 25 light-years away.
  • Such a mission could provide, as the scientist told ScienceAlert, 'I would hope to observe deviations from the predictions of general relativity and some clues to develop a theory beyond general relativity,' which could test Einstein's theory in extreme gravity.
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Black holes are one of the great enigmas of the universe. Not even the brightest minds of modern physics have been able to unravel what exactly happens within them, where a point of infinite density known as singularity is hidden. Nor is it known what happens when crossing its limit, the so-called horizon of events. There are several theories, certainties, almost none. Known by a gravitational force so intense that not even the light can escape,…

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Scientists plan to shoot tiny spacecraft at black hole using lasers

The ultra-lightweight craft would be propelled by a laser beam through space at the speed of light.

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Forbes broke the news in United States on Thursday, August 7, 2025.
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