Category Archives: Moon Colonization

The court also allowed the ban to go into effect for people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen who do not already have ties to the U.S.

Here are the basics.

Mr. Trump hailed a clear victory for our national security.

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South Korea is offering the U.S. reassurances on North Korea ahead of President Moon Jae-ins visit to the White House on Thursday and Friday.

The countrys foreign minister indicated that Seoul would honor an agreement to deploy the American Thaad missile-defense system despite public protests, above, and economic retaliation from China.

She also said the government would not hurry to try to reopen a jointly run industrial complex in the North Korean city of Kaesong, a conduit for hard currency for the North.

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A New York Times correspondent, above, who has covered race in the U.S. traveled through Australias indigenous communities and encountered young people defying stereotypes and the painful legacy of colonization with outrage, resignation and courage.

A 60-minute documentary based on his travels, part of the Australian Broadcasting Corporations Foreign Correspondent series, will air today and online.

And check out The Breakdown, conversation starters and context drawn from Australia news. Catch up on David Petraeuss views on Australian might, the Great Barrier Reefs estimated value and Russell Crowes battle with gossip weeklies.

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Climate conundrum: The amount of carbon dioxide humans are pumping into the air seems to have stabilized but data gathered at the worlds monitoring stations, like the one above in Tasmania, show that excess carbon dioxide is still on the rise

One troubling possibility: The worlds natural sponges for the greenhouse gas, like the ocean, are no longer able to keep up.

Indias tech workers face the possibility that automation, robotics and other technologies will prompt their industry, valued at $150 billion a year, to shed jobs en masse.

A court in Shanghai sentenced three Australian and 13 other employees of Crown Resorts to prison terms for illegally promoting gambling. The case is seen as Beijings warning to foreign gambling operators.

Whats next for Takata? We look at the far-reaching consequences of the bankruptcy declaration by the airbag maker at the center of worlds largest auto safety recall.

European Union officials are expected to issue a record fine of at least $1.2 billion against Google for breaking the regions competition rules.

Best Inc, the Chinese delivery firm backed by Alibaba, filed for an initial public offering on Wall Street, with an initial target of $750 million.

Most U.S. stocks were higher. Heres a snapshot of global markets.

Liu Xiaobo, the jailed Chinese activist who won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, received a medical parole to be treated for late-stage cancer, and supporters called for his wife, Liu Xia, to be freed from house arrest and allowed to visit him. [The New York Times]

Pakistans prime minister cut short a private visit to London and promised to get to the bottom of the fuel tanker inferno in Punjab Province that killed at least 153 people. [The New York Times]

In southwest China, a month-old infant whose crying woke his parents is credited with their miraculous survival in a landslide that appears to have claimed the rest of their village. [Caixin]

Flashback: In 1973, Chan Hak-chi and his wife swam six hours through a typhoon and shark-infested waters to reach Hong Kong and escape Chinas Cultural Revolution. [Sixth Tone]

Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life.

Give biking to work a try. Start with our guide.

If you find yourself nodding off at your desk today, go ahead and take a nap. Itll do wonders for your productivity.

Recipe of the day: A cucumber and yogurt salad sprinkled with dill and sour cherries is a wonderful complement to a hearty main dish.

Australian odyssey: Our reporter went out on a lonely highway on a mission to save joeys baby kangaroos whose mothers ended up as roadkill. She also found a makeshift orphanage that takes in about 100 baby roos a year.

New Zealand is celebrating after a crew of young newcomers finished off a surprisingly lopsided 7-1 victory over their U.S. rivals to reclaim the Americas Cup after a 14-year wait.

K-pops effervescent universe was on full volume at KCON, an annual concert festival in New Jersey devoted to up-close and giggly interaction with fans (( hi-touch, in the lingo of the genre).

The Times has set up a forum for our journalists to speak directly to you about our coverage. Today, they explain why some important news stories run in feature sections and discuss the challenges in making our coverage more global in perspective.

Today is Seven Sleepers Day, which both celebrates an ancient legend and supposedly predicts the weather in the German-speaking parts of Europe.

The legend, which features in both Christian and Islamic tradition, stretches back centuries. It involves a group of seven youths who escaped religious persecution by hiding in a cave, where they slept for hundreds of years before awakening.

More practically speaking, the days weather is thought to foretell conditions for the rest of the summer, similar to the way Groundhog Day predicts the arrival of spring in the U.S.

Above, a hiker on Herzogstand Mountain in southern Germany.

According to one saying, ist der Siebenschlfer nass, regnets ohne Unterlass, or if Seven Sleepers is wet, it rains unceasingly. More precisely, if it rains on June 27, it will pour for seven weeks.

The days predictive power is helped, as Germanys weather service explains, by the jet stream, which stabilizes around this time, providing, with some variation, a consistent forecast.

(Confusing matters, the days name in German is Siebenschlfertag, which is nearly identical but unrelated to Siebenschlfer, the word for a type of dormouse common in Europe that hibernates for about seven months.)

Palko Karasz contributed reporting.

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This briefing was prepared for the Australian morning. We also have briefings timed for the Asian, European and American mornings. You can sign up for these and other Times newsletters here.

Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings and updated online.

What would you like to see here? Contact us at asiabriefing@nytimes.com.

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Narendra Modi, Travel Ban, Liu Xiaobo: Your Morning Briefing - New York Times

This story was updated at 6:39 p.m. ET.

Vast pockets of water ice numbering in the millions of tons have been discovered at the north pole of the moon, opening up another region of the lunar surface for potential exploration by astronauts and unmanned probes, NASA announced Monday.

A NASA radar instrument on an Indian moon probe found evidence of at least 600 million metric tons of water ice spread out on the bottom of craters at the lunar north pole. It is yet another supply of lunar water ice, a vital resource that could be mined to produce oxygen or rocket fuel to support a future moon base, NASA officials said.

More than 40 craters ranging from 1 mile (2 km) to 9 miles (15 km) wide were found harboring the water ice, which was detected using NASA?s Mini-SAR radar instrument on India?s Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter. The instrument is also known as Mini-RF in NASA parlance.

"After analyzing the data, our science team determined a strong indication of water ice, a finding which will give future missions a new target to further explore and exploit," said Jason Crusan, program executive for the Mini-RF Program for NASA's space operations program in Washington, D.C., in a statement.

Water, water everywhere

The ice was discovered in permanently shadowed craters at the moon?s north pole. Similar conditions of perpetual night exist at the moon?s south pole as well, where water ice was also confirmed to be present last year. Because these regions never see sunlight, water can stay in its frozen form indefinitely.

Last September, NASA and other scientists confirmed without a doubt the existence of water ice at the moon?s south pole, as well as signals of water molecules across large areas of the lunar surface. Several spacecraft, including India?s Chandrayaan-1 probe that carried the radar instrument used for the new findings, found hard evidence of water on the moon.

In October, NASA crashed two impactor probes into the lunar south pole in an attempt to kick up clouds of water ice and measure it from an orbiting spacecraft and other space and ground-based observatories. The subsequent analysis turned up significant amounts of water and water vapor in the debris cloud, NASA scientists said.

"The emerging picture from the multiple measurements and resulting data of the instruments on lunar missions indicates that water creation, migration, deposition and retention are occurring on the moon," said Paul Spudis, principal investigator of the Mini-SAR experiment at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, in a statement. "The new discoveries show the moon is an even more interesting and attractive scientific, exploration and operational destination than people had previously thought."

The research will be detailed in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Will astronauts go?

Water ice is a tantalizing find anywhere on the moon because it can serve as a natural resource for astronauts on future lunar landing missions. The ice could be melted into drinking water or be separated into its component oxygen and hydrogen to provide breathing air and rocket fuel, NASA officials have said in the past.

NASA had planned to send astronauts on new lunar landing missions by 2020 as part of its Constellation program. The program was building the new Altair moon landers, as well as the Orion spacecraft and Ares rockets needed to launch ferry them to lunar surface, but experts said it was extremely underfunded and behind schedule.

Last month, President Barack Obama ordered NASA to cancel the Constellation program and focus on using commercial spacecraft to launch American astronauts to orbit instead. The move is aimed at freeing up NASA to concentrate on more lofty exploration missions, such as returning to the moon or sending astronauts to visit an asteroid, stable regions in space called Lagrange points or the moons of Mars.

NASA chief Charles Bolden told members of the U.S. Senate and Congress last week that Mars is expected to be the ultimate destination for astronauts. But the moon, he said, is still a good interim target to serve as a stepping stone for more distant space exploration goals.

Chandrayaan-1?s Mini-SAR radar was one of two instruments involving NASA on India?s Chandrayan-1 spacecraft. The probe also carried the Moon Mineralogy Mapper for NASA. A version of Mini-SAR, called Mini-RF, is riding on NASA?s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

India launched Chandrayaan-1 probe in October 2008 and carried 11 instruments to observe the moon from lunar orbit. It was India?s first moon probe and carried an impactor probe that it unleashed in November 2008. The spacecraft went offline in late August 2009 after an abrupt malfunction cut off communications with Earth.

India is planning a successor to Chandrayaan-1, dubbed Chandrayaan-2. The name Chandrayaan means ?moon craft? in Sanskrit.

The new Chandrayaan-2 mission is slated to launch in 2013, according to Indian news reports.

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Tons of Water Ice Found on the Moon's North Pole

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Hawking urges Moon landing to 'elevate humanity' BBC News Prof Stephen Hawking has called for leading nations to send astronauts to the Moon by 2020. They should also aim to build a lunar base in 30 years' time and send people to Mars by 2025. Prof Hawking said that the goal would re-ignite the space ... Stephen Hawking: Earth is in peril, it's time to get out of DodgeUSA TODAY Stephen Hawking: 'I Am Convinced That Humans Need to Leave Earth'EcoWatch Stephen Hawking: Humans Should Ride a Beam of Light to Other PlanetsLive Science Tech Times -Weekly Observer -Vox all 106 news articles »

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Hawking urges Moon landing to 'elevate humanity' - BBC News

Stephen Hawking repeated his warning that humanity needs to leave Earth and colonize the moon, Mars or other planets in order for our species to survive the impending doom of climate change.

"We have given our planet the disastrous gift of climate change ... When we we have reached similar crises there has usually been somewhere else to colonize ... But there is no new world, no utopia around the corner," he said. "We are running out of space, and the only places to go to are other worlds."

"It is time to explore other solar systems," Hawking continued. "Spreading out may be the only thing that saves us from ourselves. I am convinced that humans need to leave Earth."

Space travel would "elevate humanity," he noted.

The renowned physicist made the remarks Wednesday at the Starmus arts and science festival in Norway.

At the event, Hawking criticized President Donald Trump's decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement, saying "I am not denying the importance of fighting climate change and global warming, unlike Donald Trump, who may just have taken the most serious, and wrong, decision on climate change this world has seen."

The professor is working with Russian billionaire Yuri Milner's Breakthrough Starshot initiative to send a fleet of laser-powered "nano craft" into space.

"Such a system could reach Mars in less than an hour, reach Pluto in days, pass Voyager [the space probe launched in 1977] in under a week, and reach Alpha Centauri in just over 20 years," he said. "Once there, the nano craft could image any planets discovered in the system, test for magnetic fields and organic molecules, and send the data back to Earth in another laser beam."

The scheme is "a real opportunity for man to make early forays into outer space, with a view to probing and weighing the possibilities of colonization," he said.

Hawking also urged world leaders to send astronauts to the moon by 2020, build a lunar base in 30 years and to send people to Mars by 2025.

"Spreading out into space will completely change the future of humanity," he said. "I hope it would unite competitive nations in a single goal, to face the common challenge for us all."

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Stephen Hawking: 'I Am Convinced That Humans Need to Leave Earth' - EcoWatch

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SpaceX's Quest For Rocketry's Holy Grail - Space.com ...

Stephen Hawking says as humans explore other worlds to inhabit, they may need to get there on "a powerful beam of light."

In remarks this week at Starmus, an arts and science festival in Norway, Hawking restated his belief that humans need to explore space to avoid the dangers of our own finite world and then described how we could harness the power of Einstein's theory of relativity to get to distant planets, Live Science reported.

"Shouldn't we be content to be cosmic sloths, enjoying the universe from the comfort of Earth? The answer is, no," Hawking said, Live Science reported. "The Earth is under threat from so many areas that it is difficult for me to be positive."

"When we have reached similar crises in our history, there has usually been somewhere else to colonize," he added. "Columbus did it in 1492 when he discovered the New World. But now there is no new world. No Utopia around the corner."

Though it's easiest to target the moon and Mars for colonization, it's not practical, Hawking noted. A more promising idea is to explore some of the planets in the vicinity of our nearest stellar neighbor, Proxima Centauri, at a distance of about 4.5 light-years from Earth.

A planet circling it, called Proxima Centauri b., may be similar to Earth in a few respects, Hawking said but we'll never know unless we get there, and using chemical propulsions, it'd take 3 million years, Live Science reported.

"To go faster would require a much higher exhaust speed than chemical rockets can provide that of light itself," Hawking said, Live Science reported.

"A powerful beam of light from the rear could drive the spaceship forward. Nuclear fusion could provide 1 percent of the spaceship's mass energy, which would accelerate it to a tenth of the speed of light."

According to Live Science, Hawking, along with physicist and billionaire Yuri Milner, has founded a company called Breakthrough Starshot to make interstellar travel a reality.

"Human colonization on other planets is no longer science fiction," Hawking said. "It can be science fact. If humanity is to continue for another million years, our future lies in boldly going where no one else has gone before."

2017 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

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Stephen Hawking: 'Powerful Beam of Light' Could Help Humans ... - Newsmax

Having previously teased that he'd like to put one million people on Mars, tech billionaire and serial enterpreneur Elon Musk released the specifics of his plan to colonize space. His paper "Making Humans a Multi-Planetary Species" outlines what kind of technology humans will need to make that dream a reality, including how to build a city on Mars, as well as the timeline for this endeavor.

Musk proposes that it's a necessity to make humans a space-faring civilization, citing the inevitable "doomsday event" that will befall us sooner or later. One big goal in making us a "multi-planetary species" would be to create a city on Mars that works not just an outpost but as a self-sustaining settlement that will drive the planet's colonization.

The SpaceX, Neuralink, and Tesla Motors CEO sees Mars as the best destination for such a city because it has conditions better suited for a human colony than other planets - it has atmosphere, it's rich in resources, its day is 24.5 hours, similar to Earth's. In fact, the red planet is so similar to Earth that "if we could warm Mars up, we would once again have a thick atmosphere and liquid oceans," writes Musk.

Here's how Musk compared Earth and Mars head to head:

The big problem in getting people to Mars now? Exorbitant costs of about $10 billion per person, if we were to use traditional "Appolo-style" approaches. Musk wants that number to go down by 5 million percent. If the number is closer to $200,000 per person (a median house price in the U.S.), Mars colonization would become a reality. Musk sees this number dropping even lower eventually, to below $100,000 per person.

How would Musk bridge that gap? Most of the improvement would come from rocket reusability, while other cost savings would lie in figuring out how to refill in orbit and produce propellant on Mars. Choosing the right propellant is also important. Musk says methane would be easier and cheaper to harvest on Mars than, for example, hydrogen.

Getting people to Mars and other planets would be the job of the Interplanetary Transport System, which will feature a booster and a spaceship powered by the Raptor engine, currently in development by SpaceX. It will be 3 times more powerful than the engine currently powering the Falcon 9 rocket from SpaceX.

The booster, which Musk aims to make reusable up to a 1,000 times, would have 42 Raptorengines, making it the most powerful rocket in history. The booster would also be capable of launching 300 metric tons into low Earth orbit. Compare that to NASA's Saturn V moon rocket which could lift 135 metric tons.

Here's how the whole system that SpaceX is looking to implement would operate:

Musk also gives some details on how a trip to Mars aboard one of his ships would look like - a trip he estimates would take about 115 days. It's important to make such a journey "fun and exciting," with zero-gravity games, movies, lecture halls, cabins and a restaurant, Musk writes.

Once we figure out how to get humans to Mars in an efficient and consistent manner, Musk imagines that the colony there would need a million people for a self-sustaining city. To get them there would require 1,000 ships, each carrying 100 people. With travelling to the red planet possible every 26 months thanks to having to wait for favorable alignment with Earth, the whole process of colonizing Mars would take about 40-100 years after the first ship goes, which is currently planned for 2023.

Musk also considers going to other parts of the solar system by envisioning a system of planet or moon hopping. Besides creating and improving spacecraft, the key for further colonization of space would be to establish propellant depots in the asteroid belt or the moons of Jupiter or Saturn. That would enable flights to these and other planets.

How realistic are Musk's plans? The prolific enterpreneur has a proven track record in methodically carrying out his visions. He also sees the colonization of Mars as such a personal priority that he says he's making money primarily for that purpose:

"I should also add that the main reason I am personally accumulating assets is in order to fund this. I really do not have any other motivation for personally accumulating assets except to be able to make the biggest contribution I can to making life multi-planetary," writes Musk.

Scott Hubbard, the editor-in-chief of New Space, a peer-reviewed space exploration journal that published the paper, thinks Musk's paper is a great jumping-off point for further discussion:

"In my view, publishing this paper provides not only an opportunity for the spacefaring community to read the SpaceX vision in print with all the charts in context, but also serves as a valuable archival reference for future studies and planning. My goal is to make New Space the forum for publication of novel exploration conceptsparticularly those that suggest an entrepreneurial path for humans traveling to deep space, said Hubbard.

You can read Musk's paper here.

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Elon Musk Releases Detailed Plans for Colonizing Mars and Other Planets - Big Think

Stephen Hawking says human race could risk dying out if we dont colonize a new planet. Veuer's Nick Cardona (@nickcardona93) has that story. Buzz60

British physicist Stephen Hawking was interviewed on British TV on May 30, 2016, saying U.K. should stay inside the European Union because of its support for research, and he cannot fathom the popularity of presumptive candidate for U.S. president Donald Trump.(Photo: Matt Dunham, AP)

Physicist Stephen Hawking believestime is running out for humankind on Earth, and humans should focus their efforts on exploring new worlds inorderto survive.

For years,Hawking has warned that humankind faces extinction from a slew of threatsranging from climate change todestruction from nuclear war and genetically engineered viruses. Hawking recently estimated that humans have 100 years left on Earthif were lucky.

During a speech at Starmus, an arts and science festival in Norway, Hawking reiterated that humanitys future is not on the planet it has treated so poorly, BBC reported.

If humanity is to continue another million years, our future lies in boldly going where no one else has gone before, Hawking said, BBC reported.

Hawking noted that leaving Earth can not be the mission of one country, but a collective effort.

"To leave Earth demands a concerted global approach, everyone should join in, he said. We need to rekindle the excitement of the early days of space travel in the sixties."

He suggested the worlds nations should work together to send astronauts to the Moon by 2020 and Mars by 2025. Furthermore, there should be plans in place to build a lunar base within 30 years.

"Whenever we make a great new leap, such as the Moon landings, we bring people and nations together, usher in new discoveries, and new technologies," he said.

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And space exploration cant stop with Mars and the Moon. Hawking noted that climate change and dwindling natural resources, make it clear a long-term colonization plan is needed.

Hawking said when humans have faced similar crises or lack or resources, theyve set out to discover and colonize new parts of the world, Newsweek reported.

Columbus did it in 1492 when he discovered the New World, Hawking said. But now there is no new world. No Utopia around the corner.

Hawking noted that the path forward is clear: Its time to get out of Dodge.

We are running out of space, and the only places to go to are other worlds, he said. It is time to explore other solar systems. Spreading out may be the only thing that saves us from ourselves. I am convinced that humans need to leave Earth.

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Stephen Hawking: Earth is in peril, it's time to get out of Dodge - USA TODAY

The full moon of Augustis shining bright for skywatchers around the world tonight (Aug. 18). In fact, some viewers got a preview of this so-called Full Sturgeon Moon in a webcast last night.

August's Full Sturgeon Moon occured at 5:26 a.m. EDT (0926 GMT) on today, but to the casual observer, the moon will appear full the day before (tonight) and after the lunar event. To celebrate the moon milestone, the online Slooh Community Observatory hosted a free live webcast on the full moon in partnership with "The Old Farmer's Almanac," and you can see it on Slooh.com.

You can also see the August full moon webcast here on Space.com, courtesy of Slooh. [The Full Moon: Why It Happens | Video]

A full moon occurs each month when the sun, Earth and moon line up, with the Earth in between the two. During this time, the Earth-facing side of the moon is completely illuminated by the sun, giving observers on the planet a stunningly bright lunar sight, weather permitting.

August's full moon is known as the Full Sturgeon Moon (among other lunar names) by some Native American tribes because it marks the time when its namesake fish can be most readily caught.

During Slooh's lunar webcast, host Paul Cox discussed the August full moon's many names with Janice Stillman, editor of "The Old Farmer's Almanac."

"Some Native American tribes called the August Moon the 'Sturgeon Moon,' 'Full Green Corn Moon' and the 'Blueberry Moon,'" Slooh representatives wrote in an announcement. "Janice will discuss where these unique names came from, and share some of the legend and lore surrounding those names and traditions."

Cox was also joined in the webcast by Slooh astronomer Bob Berman (who is also astronomy editor for "The Old Farmer's Almanac") "to discuss what causes the full moon, point out some of its interesting features and preview the upcoming series of supermoons which start their arrival this fall," Slooh representatives explained.

August's full moon is also known as the Harvest to the Chinese and the Dispute Moon in Celtic culture. And in the Southern Hemisphere, where it is currently winter, August's full moon has been known as the Snow Moon, Storm Moon, Hunger Moon and Wolf Moon, according to Earthsky.org.

A so-called supermoon occurs when the full moon of a given month coincides with the moon's arrival at perigee, the point in its orbit when it is closest to Earth. During these times, the moon can appear up to 14 percent larger than it appears when it is at its farthest point from Earth. Supermoons, or perigee full moons, will occur on Oct. 16, Nov. 14 and Dec. 14.

During some full moons, the moon aligns directly behind the Earth with respect to the sun, creating a lunar eclipse as it passes through the Earth's shadow. Because the moon's orbit is tilted, this lunar alignment does not occur every month. The next such eclipse will be a minor penumbral lunar eclipse and will occur on Sept. 16.

Editor's note: If you snap an awesome photo of the moon that you'd like to share with Space.com and our news partners for a potential story or gallery, send images and comments in to managing editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com.

Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him@tariqjmalikandGoogle+.Follow us@Spacedotcom,FacebookandGoogle+. Original article onSpace.com.

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August Full Moon 2016: See the Lunar 'Sturgeon' Tonight

Stephen Hawking has a long list of warnings about threats to humanity.

Humanity should focus its efforts on exploring other worlds that we might inhabit, and to get there, Earthlings may need to ride on a beam of light, famed physicist Stephen Hawking says.

Hawking made his remarks today (June 20) at Starmus, an arts and science festival in Norway whose advisory board he sits on. In his speech, he reiterated his belief that humans need to explore space to avoid the dangers of our own finite world. And then he described how humans could one day travel on a beam of light, harnessing the power of Einstein's theory of relativity to reach mind-bogglingly distant planets. [8 Shocking Things We Learned from Stephen Hawking's Book]

The human imagination has led us to peer ever deeper into the universe with scientific tools, Hawking said. Yet despite this ability to investigate the most distant reaches of the universe without leaving our backyards, humans shouldn't be content with this sedentary approach.

"Shouldn't we be content to be cosmic sloths, enjoying the universe from the comfort of Earth? The answer is, no," Hawking said in his address. "The Earth is under threat from so many areas that it is difficult for me to be positive."

What's more, humans are naturally curious explorers who are driven to push into the unknown. Hawking described the looming threats of a too-crowded world facing climate change, the collapse of animal species and the draining of physical resources. (Hawking has previously mentioned his conviction that humanity is doomed in the next millennium unless people can come up with an escape plan.)

"When we have reached similar crises in our history, there has usually been somewhere else to colonize. Columbus did it in 1492 when he discovered the New World. But now there is no new world. No Utopia around the corner," Hawking said.

The easiest targets are the places closest to home: the moon and Mars, Hawking said in his Starmus address. The moon is nearby, but it's small, has no liquid water and lacks a magnetic field to shield people from radiation. Mars may once have had liquid water and an atmosphere, but no longer.

But an even more promising idea is to explore some of the planets in the vicinity of our nearest stellar neighbor, Proxima Centauri, at a distance of about 4.5 light-years from Earth, where 1 light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles (10 million kilometers). A planet circling Proxima Centauri, called Proxima Centauri b, may be somewhat similar to Earth, at least in a few respects, Hawking said.

However, we'll never know how hospitable Proxima b is unless we can get there. At current speeds, using chemical propulsion, it would take 3 million years to reach the exoplanet, Hawking said. [Interstellar Space Travel: 7 Futuristic Spacecraft to Explore the Cosmos]

Thus, space colonization requires a radical departure in our travel technology.

"To go faster would require a much higher exhaust speed than chemical rockets can provide that of light itself," Hawking said. "A powerful beam of light from the rear could drive the spaceship forward. Nuclear fusion could provide 1 percent of the spaceship's mass energy, which would accelerate it to a tenth of the speed of light."

Going faster than that would require harnessing matter-antimatter annihilation or as-yet-undreamed-of technology, he added. (When matter and antimatter come into contact, they annihilate, releasing gobs of energy.)

To bring these seeming pipe dreams closer to reality, Hawking, along with physicist and billionaire Yuri Milner, has founded a company called Breakthrough Starshot, which aims to make interstellar travel a reality. As an early prototype, the team is creating a teensy space probe, just a few centimeters wide, attached to a miniscule light sail. The plan is to send 1,000 of these "StarChips" and their sails into the void, with arrays of lasers uniting to form one powerful light beam to propel the tiny sails with gigawatts of power, Hawking said.

The energy imparted to the tiny space probes could zoom them to speeds reaching about 100 million mph (160 million km/h), which would mean they would reach Mars in a day (as opposed to 260 days using propulsion). At one-fifth the speed of light, the probes would reach Alpha Centauri in just 20 years and send images of any possible planets back on another light beam, Hawking said. Another physicist, Claudius Gros has proposed using these tiny space explorers to colonize far-flung planets with a biosphere of unicellular organisms, Hawking said

"Human colonization on other planets is no longer science fiction. It can be science fact. The human race has existed as a separate species for about 2 million years. Civilization began about 10,000 years ago, and the rate of development has been steadily increasing. If humanity is to continue for another million years, our future lies in boldly going where no one else has gone before," Hawking said.

Originally published on Live Science.

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Stephen Hawking: Humans Should Ride a Beam of Light to Other Planets - Live Science