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Starshot: Concept and Execution by Paul Gilster on April 22, 2016 Because I get irritable when I don't get my walking in every day, I made sure when I arrived in Palo Alto to cram as much as I could into the day before Breakthrough Discuss began. That meant heading out from the hotel just after noon and putting in about five miles. Palo Alto is a very walkable place and I found myself ambling up and down shady streets past gardens bright with spring flowers. We had superb weather for the entire conference, but naturally when things got going,...

In 2008 NASA decided to send one of the heights of modern art — The Beatles' 1969 track "Across the Universe" — into the cosmos. And for 2013, one of the pillars of internet folk art is preparing for takeoff: An animated GIF is about to be sent into space for the first time ever. The message will be beamed over a giant radio dish in California tomorrow as part of the inaugural transmission of Lone Signal, a project that's hoping to communicate with extraterrestrials. The GIF will be sent toward Gliese 526, a potentially habitable solar system 17.6...

Mars pictures beamed back to Earth Pictures of Mars have been received from the craft carrying Beagle 2 - the British probe due to land on the Red Planet on Christmas Day and search for life. The images from the European Space Agency's Mars Express, captured from a distance of 3.36 million miles, were taken to test its high resolution camera. Mars Express will use the camera to take close-up pictures of the Martian surface once it begins orbiting the planet. The test is one of a series of checks and rehearsals before the start of a critical series of...