An astonishing space mission to visit our nearest star system and find out if alien life exists has been launched by Professor Stephen Hawking.

Despite being visible in the night sky without a telescope, Alpha Centauri is 25 trillion miles away (4.3 light years) and would take around 30,000 years to reach with current technology.

However Professor Hawking has joined forces with Russian billionaire Yuri Milner to develop technology which would allow a spacecraft to reach the star system in just 20 years.

Read more here, not sure how you fix these links but I'm sure someone will help.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/04/12/professor-stephen-hawking-to-announce-mystery-space-mission/

I heard about that. Sounds interesting. I'm really curious how only Hawking and company managed to figure out how to make an object fly at almost a quarter of the speed of light, when no one else has.

I was a little concerned when I read that these lazer beams will be seen throughout space and they hope any alien life might see it, I'm not sure that's a good idea

not sure the tech is ready for their plans... it might take another twenty years to send something the size of an Iphone to another star, and to get the info back to earth...

Actually, there is a problem with terminology here. When some science writer writes "30,000 years" it usually means they don't really know what current technology is available. If we loaded a conventional rocket with conventional fuel you get huge number like that. But ion rockets and plasma drives have already been tested by NASA like the VASIMR, not to mention atomic power.

The plasma drive looks like the best bet for really long range flights but if the controllable linear fusion reactor ever gets built, a powerful ion drive would be in the making yet still needing to solve the ion grid erosion problem for really long flights of years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_propulsion_engine