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Two new missions to Venus -- DAVINCI+ and VERITAS -- have been selected by NASA. These missions will shed light on how Venus became the inhospitable world it is today, despite the fact that it shares many characteristics with Earth.

This illustration shows the position of NASA's Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes outside the heliosphere, a protective bubble created by the sun that extends well past the orbit of Pluto.

SPHEREx, the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer, will study the beginning and evolution of the universe and determine how common the ingredients for life are within the planetary systems found in our galaxy, the Milky Way. It is targeted to launch in 2024.

Caltech

This illustration shows NASA's Dragonfly rotorcraft-lander approaching a site on Saturn's exotic moon, Titan. Taking advantage of Titan's dense atmosphere and low gravity, Dragonfly will explore dozens of locations across the icy world, sampling and measuring the compositions of Titan's organic surface materials to characterize the habitability of Titan's environment and investigate the progression of prebiotic chemistry.

JHU-APL/NASA

NASA's Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, slated to launch in the mid-2020s, has been named the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, after NASA's first chief astronomer.

Courtesy NASA

This is an artist's concept of the Europa Clipper spacecraft, which will investigate Jupiter's icy moon.

JPL-Caltech/NASA

Bright swaths of red in the upper atmosphere, known as airglow, can be seen in this image from the International Space Station. NASA's ICON mission will observe how interactions between terrestrial weather and a layer of charged particles called the ionosphere create the colorful glow.

NASA

NASA's Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk mission -- known as the GOLD mission -- will examine the response of the upper atmosphere to force from the sun, the magnetosphere and the lower atmosphere.

NASA

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite launched in April and is already identifying exoplanets orbiting the brightest stars just outside our solar system. In the first three months since it began surveying the sky in July, it has found three exoplanets, with the promise of many more ahead.

MIT News/Goddard Space Flight Center/NASA

This is an artist's concept of the Solar Probe Plus spacecraft approaching the sun. In order to unlock the mysteries of the corona, but also to protect a society that is increasingly dependent on technology from the threats of space weather, we will send Solar Probe Plus to touch the sun.

Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/NASA

Breakthrough Starshot —

This illustration shows light beams from Earth pushing a tiny spacecraft's sail. The proposed Breakthrough Starshot project would send hundreds of "nanocraft" space probes 4.37 light years away -- at speeds of up to 100 million miles an hour -- to to explore Alpha Centauri, our nearest star system. The ambitious project is many years away from becoming reality.

Courtesy BREAKTHROUGH INITIATIVES

Breakthrough Starshot —

Philanthropist Yuri Milner, left, and astrophysicist Stephen Hawking host a press conference to announce Breakthrough Starshot on Tuesday, April 12, 2016, in New York City. Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg also sits on the mission's board of directors.

Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Breakthrough Prize Foundation

New Horizons —

No spacecraft had ever gone to Pluto before NASA's New Horizons made its fly-by on July 14, 2015. The probe sent back amazing, detailed images of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon. It also dazzled scientists with new information about Pluto's atmosphere and landscape. New Horizons is still going today, heading out into the Kuiper Belt.

NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI

Curiosity Mars Rover —

This image shows the Curiosity rover doing a test drill on a rock dubbed "Bonanza King" to see if it would be a good place to dig deeper and take a sample. Curiosity was launched in 2011, and it is the most advanced rover ever built. It's helping scientists determine whether Mars is, or ever was, habitable for life forms.

NASA/JPL

Kepler —

The Kepler space observatory is the first NASA mission dedicated to finding Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zones of stars. Launched in 2009, Kepler has been detecting planets and planet candidates with a wide range of sizes and orbital distances. Yes, we are still finding new planets.

NASA

NEOWISE —

NASA's infrared-wavelength space telescope called NEOWISE may help make us safer. The space telescope hunts for asteroids and comets, including those that could pose a threat to Earth. During its planned three-year survey through 2016, NEOWISE will identify near-Earth objects, gather data on their size and take other measurements. The probe was launched on December 14, 2009, for its original mission -- to perform an all-sky astronomical survey. The probe was put in hibernation for several years, but it was fired up again in December 2013 to hunt for asteroids. Its images are now available to the public online.

NASA

Dawn —

NASA's Dawn spacecraft began orbiting the dwarf planet Ceres in March. Scientists were surprised by the large white spots shining on Ceres, seen above. On its way to Ceres, Dawn spent time studying the proto-planet Vesta in 2001. Ceres and Vesta are the two most massive bodies in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The mission, launched in 2007, is giving scientists new knowledge of how the solar system formed and evolved.

NASA/JPL

NASA's <a target="_blank" target="_blank">Deep Impact spacecraft</a> was launched on January 12, 2005, and it traveled 268 million miles (431 million kilometers) to hurl its coffee table-sized probe into comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005. This image of Tempel 1 was taken by Deep Impact's camera 67 seconds after the probe hit the comet. Scattered light from the collision saturated the camera's detector and caused the bright splash seen in this image. The Deep Impact mission was supposed to end a few weeks later, but NASA approved an extension and renamed the spacecraft <a target="_blank" target="_blank">EPOXI</a> and sent it on to<a target="_blank" target="_blank"> fly by Comet Hartley 2</a> in November 2010. The probe <a target="_blank" target="_blank">stopped communicating</a> with mission managers in September 2013 and was declared lost.

Deep Impact/EPOXI —

NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft was launched on January 12, 2005, and it traveled 268 million miles (431 million kilometers) to hurl its coffee table-sized probe into comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005. This image of Tempel 1 was taken by Deep Impact's camera 67 seconds after the probe hit the comet. Scattered light from the collision saturated the camera's detector and caused the bright splash seen in this image. The Deep Impact mission was supposed to end a few weeks later, but NASA approved an extension and renamed the spacecraft EPOXI and sent it on to fly by Comet Hartley 2 in November 2010. The probe stopped communicating with mission managers in September 2013 and was declared lost.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD

Cassini —

The Cassini spacecraft ended its mission in 2017. The probe was launched on October 15, 1997, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. It arrived at Saturn on June 30, 2004. The spacecraft dropped a probe called Huygens to the surface of Saturn's moon Titan. It was the first landing on a moon in the outer solar system.

NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Stardust —

The Stardust spacecraft was launched on February 7, 1999, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. After traveling 3.5 billion miles (5.6 billion kilometers), the spacecraft made history by capturing images of asteroid Annefrank and collecting samples of comet Wild 2 and successfully returning them to Earth. It also took spectacular images of comet Tempel 1. The probe's mission ended on March 25, 2011, when mission managers put it in safe mode and turned off the transmitter for the last time.

NASA

Surveyor —

Surveyor 1 was the first U.S. spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon. The program ran during the mid-1960s and was declared a success. The program's focus eventually switched to support of the Apollo program.

NASA

Explorer 1 —

A model of Explorer 1, America's first satellite, is held by, from left, NASA official William Pickering, scientist James Van Allen and rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun. The team was gathered at a news conference at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington to announce the satellite's successful launch. It had been launched a few hours before, on January 31, 1958.

NASA

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Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking announced the ambitious Breakthrough Starshot project on Tuesday

The project would send hundreds of tiny space probes to explore Alpha Centauri, our nearest star system

CNN —

Imagine hundreds of spacecraft the size of a butterfly, propelled by light beams at record-shattering speeds and journeying to distant stars 4.37 light years away – far deeper into space than human-built probes have ever ventured.

It’s arguably the most ambitious space exploration project in history, and it may not be completed in our lifetimes.

But if anyone can pull it off, it’s these guys.

Some of the world’s most brilliant minds, including physicist Stephen Hawking and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, are behind a $100 million program to send tiny “nanocraft” to explore Alpha Centauri, our nearest star system.

“Today, we commit to this next great leap into the cosmos,” Hawking said alongside billionaire entrepreneur Yuri Milner at a press conference Tuesday in New York. “Because we are human, and our nature is to fly.”

Hawking, Milner and Zuckerberg make up the board of directors for the mission, which is called Breakthrough Starshot and seeks to apply Silicon Valley ingenuity to space travel. The project is led by Pete Worden, former director of NASA’s Ames Research Center, and advised by a committee of top scientists and engineers.

Their plan goes like this: They hope to build hundreds of little space probes, each weighing just a few grams and carrying cameras, photon thrusters, power supply, navigation and communication equipment. A rocket would ferry these nanocraft into space, where they would unfold tiny sails.

Powerful laser beams from Earth would then push the sails, propelling the little nanocraft up to 100 million mph – that’s 20% of light speed, far faster than today’s spacecraft can travel – to Alpha Centauri, where they would collect images and other data and beam them back to Earth.

Project leaders estimate that today’s fastest spacecraft would take about 30,000 years to reach the Alpha Centauri star system, some 25 trillion miles away. But they believe these nanocraft could fly more than 1,000 times faster, which would allow them to reach Alpha Centauri in about 20 years.

The project’s leaders admit they face big engineering challenges, and that any launch is many years and billions of dollars away. But they say their plans are based on technology that already exists or is likely to become available soon.

They also plan to ask the world’s scientists for their help by posting public-domain research and soliciting ideas online.

Some scientists are skeptical they can make this happen, given the current limits of technology and the difficulty of raising enough money to fund the project. The Russian-born Milner estimates it could cost as much as $10 billion.

But he and his colleagues for now are optimistic.

“The human story is one of great leaps,” Milner said in a statement. “Fifty-five years ago today, (Russian cosmonaut) Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. Today, we are preparing for the next great leap – to the stars.”

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Stephen Hawking wants to send tiny space probes to the stars

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