A laser pushes a mini spacecraft’s light sail in this artist’s impression Breakthrough Starshot

ASTRONOMERS have a trick to help them find the centre of the galaxy. The constellation Sagittarius forms a pattern in the shape of a teapot, and its spout points to an apparently unremarkable location called Sagittarius A*. This, 26,000 light years away, is the centre of the Milky Way, and the location of a supermassive black hole.

No telescope on its own is powerful enough to glimpse it, but a collaboration of radio astronomy observatories around the world has now imaged the event horizon of the black hole. It is a remarkable achievement, but don’t hold your breath. The first ever photograph of a black hole is composed of just two pixels (see “First ever picture of a black hole may be revealed this week”). It is a long way away, after all.

Look instead to the Centaurus constellation. If you are in the southern hemisphere, or southern parts of the northern hemisphere, you can see Alpha Centauri, the third-brightest star in the sky. Only about 4.3 light years away, it is the closest star system to Earth. The system has one confirmed planet, called Proxima b. It is literally our interstellar next door neighbour.


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“Only” 4.3 light years. That is some 40 trillion kilometres, a distance it would take 80,000 years to traverse using our best current technology. But in 2016, a project was launched to build mini spacecraft, accelerate them to 20 per cent of the speed of light, and reach our neighbours in 20 years. The scientific challenges are immense, but three years on from the announcement, progress is being made (see “Prepare to jump to light speed: Inside the mission to go interstellar”).

It may be optimistic to believe that we can develop the technology any time soon, but a project of such ambition and scope deserves our support. Few things are as inspirational and exciting as space travel, and if this ambitious and collaborative project does anything, it affirms a faith in the future.