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		</div><p>Physicist Stephen Hawking, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Russian internet billionaire Yuri Milner have announced a project that could send microscopic spaceships to hunt for extraterrestrial life in the far reaches of space.</p>
<p>The $100m project, known as Breakthrough Starshot, will examine the possibility of sending a host of tiny spacecraft far beyond the boundaries of our solar system to our nearest neighbour, the Alpha Centauri star system.</p>
<p>The project aims to find out whether the &#8220;nanocraft&#8221;, each weighing far less than an ounce, could fly at a fifth of the speed of light and capture images of possible planets and other scientific data.</p>
<p>Current spacecraft would take around 30,000 years to get to Alpha Centauri, which is 25 trillion miles or 4.37 light years away.</p>
<p>But the nanocraft, powered by a sail pushed by a light beam, could potentially travel the distance over 1,000 times faster and make the journey in 20 years.</p>
<p>The project is the latest part of Mr Milner&#8217;s years-long search for extraterrestrial life.</p>
<p>Speaking at the One World Observatory in New York, Prof. Hawking, who is on the board of the Breakthrough Starshot initiative, said: &#8220;What makes human beings unique, there are many theories.</p>
<p>&#8220;Some say it&#8217;s language or tools, others say it&#8217;s logical reasoning. They obviously haven&#8217;t met many humans. I believe what makes us unique is transcending our limits.</p>
<p>&#8220;Gravity pins us to the ground but I just flew to America. I lost my voice but I can still speak thanks to my voice synthesiser. How do we transcend these limits? With our minds and our machines.</p>
<p>&#8220;The limit that confronts us now is the great void between us and the stars, but now we can transcend it.</p>
<p>&#8220;With light beams, light sails and the lightest spacecraft ever built we can launch a mission to Alpha Centauri within a generation.</p>
<p>&#8220;Today we commit to this next great leap into the cosmos because we are human and our nature is to fly.&#8221;</p>
<p>Astronomers estimate there is a reasonable chance of an Earth-like planet existing in the &#8220;habitable zones&#8221; of Alpha Centauri&#8217;s three-star system.</p>
<p>A number of scientific instruments, based on Earth and in space, are being developed and will soon identify and characterise planets around nearby stars.</p>
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