There's been all kinds of buzz lately about some new space tech that could send a spacecraft to Mars in 3 days, and maybe even get spaceships to exoplanets that are light-years away.
Which kind of sounds like something out of a science fiction novel.
But a group of researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara is working on a new way to travel in space.
Known as photonic propulsion, it would use a giant set of lasers to push ships along.
And if it works, it could eventually be used to explore other star systems.
But that's a big if.
The project is called DEEP-IN, and its goal is to use electromagnetic acceleration to get ships close-ish to the speed of light -- fast enough that interstellar travel could actually make sense.
These days, our spaceships use chemical acceleration -- in other words, they burn fuel -- and they are fast.
They're just not fast enough to travel to other stars in any reasonable amount of time, which is where electromagnetic acceleration comes in.
Instead of using chemical energy to push itself forward, a DEEP-IN spaceship would use the energy from electromagnetic radiation -- more specifically, the energy a huge set of lasers, powered by sunlight.
