The first spacecraft to another star revealed

Will take 80,000 years to get close to Alpha Centauri, but hey, it's the thought that counts.

A private consortium this week announced a surprisingly low-cost mission to what might be the most ambitious destination of any space launch so far: the region around our closest star, Alpha Centauri.

The project aims to launch a small spacecraft carrying a payload of at least 1 kg and measuring 10 x 10 x 10 cm. The spacecraft would be deliberately placed on a trajectory towards Alpha Centauri.

The team hopes to design, build, launch and operate the mission for less than US$15 million, with liftoff planned before the end of 2029. Fundraising and the search for technical partners are now underway. You can learn about the project here.

Why on Earth are people doing this?

It's a good question! It's more of a case that we are at the point where such a mission can be seriously considered. With everything going on in the world, knowing that our civilisation has at least started the journey to another star is something truly inspirational. 

How will it escape the Sun's gravity and head to another star? What do you mean "the region around"? Why not just go to the star system itself?

Fermi Explorer will not be able to make course corrections over the millennia it will take to get to Alpha Centauri. Even spacecraft flying around the inner Solar System need to make occasional changes to their flight paths. The path away the Sun's while keeping the mission cost low is complex. The other issue is that the positions and distance between the Sun and Alpha Centauri will change as the stars move through the Milky Way and exactly what is in the interstellar medium it will encounter during the journey is not fully understood. 

Working out the proposed flight path had been a problem, until a specialist AI system developed by Physical Superintelligence (PSI) had a crack at it and found a solution that hadn't occurred to the Fermi Explorer team.  Read about their solution here.

Won't the Voyager probes and New Horizon end up outside the Solar System?

Yes, however they haven't been "aimed" at any star system in particular. Both Voyager I and 2 will "fly by" other stars in roughly 40,000 years but at distances the better part of 2 light years.  New Horizon is flying at a slower rate than the hot rod Voyager probes and will take at least several 10,000s of years to get as far as one light year. 

What will be at Alpha Centauri when Fermi Explorer finally gets there in 80,000 odd years?

Given the rate of human technology, probably a large group of onlookers ready to welcome the historic, first interstellar space probe.

The Macquarie University Astronomy Open Night is sold out. If you're attending, make sure you swing by the BINTEL stand as we'll have plenty to show you! 

The popular event always sells out ahead of time

It might be sold out, but if you scored tickets on one of Australia's biggest astronomy events at Macquarie Uni in Sydney on September 19th, there's plenty to see and do. Make sure you swing by the BINTEL stand in the main exhibition area.  

You'll be able to see the latest from some of our major partners including the new ZWO Seestar S50 Pro along with a ZWO S30 Pro, gear from OM System, Benro, Fujinon as well as a Celestron Origin Home Observatory.

Of course, you can have a chat with members of the BINTEL team who are always happy to talk about all things astronomy, telescopes, astrophotography, smart telescopes and more. 

Did you see the media coverage of new Powerhouse Parramatta observatory featuring Planewave, Sky-Watcher and Celestron Telescopes? Yes, they're from BINTEL

There's been a lot of news this week about the opening of Powerhouse Parramatta and one of the major feature of this wonderful new facility in western Sydney will be the its new observatory 

We were honoured to be asked to provide a wide range of equipment for this new observatory.  When you attend an observing session at Powerhouse Parramatta, some of the astronomy gear supplied by BINTEL that you'll be using includes: 

• PlaneWave CDK350 Observatory System
• PlaneWave Delta Rho 350 and L-350 mount
• A range of ZWO Cooled Astronomy Cameras
• Pegasus SmartEye
• Sky-Watcher Esprit 150ED APO Refractor telescopes
• Celestron StarSense Explorer 12" Dobsonian
• Lunt LS60mm telescope for daytime Solar viewing
• Plus more!

You can read more the ABC News link here.

It's especially significant for Sydney astronomers as it is opening in the year of the 200th anniversary of the discovery of famous deep-sky objects from the original Paramatta Observatory by James Dunlop, including NGC 5128 (the galaxy Centaurus A) and the barred spiral galaxy, NGC 4945. You can read our blog article from a few months ago celebrating that special evening in 1826 here. 

There is a memorial to Paramatta Observatory that's only a few hundred metres from Powerhouse Parramatta and its modern, high-tech telescopes. 

Hubble spots Saturn's newly discovered Decagon storm

An irregular hexagonal cloud band was first observed by the two Voyager probes as they flew past Saturn in 1981, and its discovery was made in 1987 when researchers further analyzed the Voyager images and made more detailed observations with the Cassini probe. 

While it needed a space probe to make the discovery, advances in amateur gear, along with camera and imaging techniques means Saturn's northern polar hexagonal bands can be captured. For example, check out Andy Casely's post to the BINTEL Society Facebook group here.

This week, astronomers announced that a similar and still apparently evolving 10-sided atmospheric wave has formed around Saturn’s south pole. The feature was first noticed in ground-based images contributed by amateur astronomers, while Hubble observations confirmed its presence and traced faint indications of it back to 2023.

Composite images of Saturn released this week by NASA showing a 10-sided storm in the planet's southern hemisphere

 "We've never seen anything quite like this in Saturn's southern hemisphere," said Amy Simon, study co-author and OPAL principal investigator, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "The northern hexagon has been there every time we've looked for more than 40 years. This feature is different — it appears to be strengthening, giving us the rare opportunity to watch a giant atmospheric pattern develop."

You can read more about this discovery here.  It's worth pointing out that you won't be able to spot this storm, even with the telescopes BINTEL supplies. Well, not yet anyway....

What's in the sky for September 2026?

It's spring 2026! We've just emerged from what was possibly the warmest winter on record Due to the current El Niño which is shaping up be one of the most severe ever recorded, the next few months are likely to be above average temperatures. I've even woken up to news of a total fire ban in Sydney today!

How that will translate into cloud cover across the country remains to be seen. I've reached out to the Australian BOM for some comments. 

In the meantime, there's some wonderful viewing above our heads each night.

Here's a sky chart prepared by Geoff Wyatt of how the southern sky will appear at around 8.00pm in September 2026. 

Cheers,

Earl White

5th September 2026