Spaceships pushed by LIGHT – the future of space travel?

This episode is brought to you by Squarespace: ‪http://www.squarespace.com/physicsgirl What if you could power a ship using sunlight instead of wind? Well in space, you can! Solar sails or light sails are pushed with light from the sun. Photons provide a kick when they reflect off the sail pushing the sail like an air molecule in the wind pushes a sailboat. Find out how a solar sail works and about the future of this technology! ‪http://physicsgirl.org/ ‪http://twitter.com/thephysisgirl ‪http://facebook.com/thephysicsgirl ‪http://instagram.com/thephysicsgirl Help us translate our videos! http://www.youtube.com/timedtext_cs_panel?c=UC7DdEm33SyaTDtWYGO2CwdA&tab=2 Host/editor: Dianna Cowern Writer: Sophia Chen Editor: Jabril Ashe - sefdstuff.com/science Animator: Kyle Norby Photos/Videos: NASA LightSail - Planetary Society Pixabay.com Shutterstock.com FASTSAT NanoSail-D Launch - NASA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gS4n5vz9Tw Optical Tweezes Footage - Dr Luis Grave De Petralta: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6ybb9rKfus IKAROS drawing - Andrzej MIrecki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKAROS#/media/File:IKAROS_solar_sail.jpg Music: APM and YouTube