Nonprofit Plans Alpha Centauri Probe Launch by 2029, Targeting 80,000-Year Journey

Since Enrico Fermi first asked 'where is everybody?' in 1950, the silence of the cosmos has pressed against human imagination like a question without a room large enough to hold it. Now, a nonprofit organization intends to send an unmanned probe called Fermi Explorer toward Alpha Centauri — our nearest stellar neighbor — departing as early as 2029 at 55,000 miles per hour on a journey of roughly 80,000 years. The mission is less an expectation of swift answers than an act of civilizational faith: the decision to reach outward, even when the reaching will outlast everything we know.