Our entire solar system could potentially be propelled through space by a stellar engine, enabling us to explore the cosmos.

Imagine aliens finding the golden record only to search earth and find a floating sign in space saying “301 moved permanently”.

The concept of a stellar engine which has been shown in a popular YouTube channel Kurzgesagt pertains to the concept of utilizing thrusters to propel the whole solar system. One concept is the Shkadov Thruster which is a solar sail that uses solar photons to ‘push’ the system, albeit rather slowly, at a pace that can take the system all the way to 100 light years in 230 million years. To achieve much higher speed several improvements were proposed; astrophysicist Matthew Caplan suggested an active version of the so-called Bussard ramjet, called Caplan Thruster, that could move the solar system 50 light-year in a million years. This engine utilizes the Sun’s material base for the fusion propulsion in order to result in the generation of the thrust to push the Sun.

Exploring the deeper parts of space is of vital importance, since there is still so much we do not know about the universe and human exploration of the deep space can ultimately bring new discoveries. That kind of spacecraft for such missions may not yet exist but they may not be needed at all. This idea makes a lot more sense considering an astronomer has proposed utilizing a “stellar engine’ to transform our solar system into a starship.

The theoretical thrusters mentioned in the case include; Another video from the Youtube channel ‘Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell’ talks about these thrusters which could seemingly push the sun and the whole solar system. The video describes how it could be done using the Shkadov Thruster that has been named by scientist Leonid Shkadov. Like the LightSail spacecraft, this idea would harness solar power to provide the motion necessary for the space craft.

However, the passive solar sail system would be extremely slow, as explained in the video: ”At full throttle the solar system could move a hundred light-years in 230million years” To come up with better solutions, Kurzgesagt involve an astrophysicist that resulted into a paper on how to achieve maximum acceleration for the star engine. Matthew Caplan of Illinois State University mapped out a new stellar engine that was used in the recording of the video.

This active engine, based on the Bussard ramjet concept, would use materials from the Sun as fuel in thermonuclear fusion reactors, which would then expel a jet of oxygen particles out of the solar system at about 1% of the speed of light. A second jet would emit hydrogen from a particle accelerator to propel the Sun forward and balance the force of the first jet, preventing the engine from crashing into the Sun.

Dubbed the Caplan Thruster by the YouTube channel, this stellar engine could potentially move the solar system 50 light-years in around a million years.

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