Breakthrough Starshot – Astronomy Now

Undergraduate devises strategy for defending Earth from cometary impacts

18 November 2016 Astronomy Now

Qicheng Zhang is an undergraduate astrophysics major at UC Santa Barbara. A recipient of a Thomas R. McGetchin Memorial Scholarship from the Universities Space Research Association, Zhang’s award-winning work demonstrates that a comet could be manipulated to mitigate a potential impact with Earth by heating it with a high-powered laser array.

Breakthrough Listen searches new-found nearby planet Proxima b for signs of ET

8 November 2016 Astronomy Now

Breakthrough Listen, the 10-year, $100-million astronomical search for intelligent life beyond Earth launched in 2015 by Internet entrepreneur Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking, has just announced its first observations of newly-discovered Earth-size planet Proxima b orbiting the nearest star to the Sun using the Parkes Radio Telescope in New South Wales, Australia.