Interesting Stuff

So, it seems like yesterday the EU’s probe finally reached the moon. This is really neat, because it is the first time an ion propulsion system has been used for any large distance. Ion propulsion is pretty great because it takes much less fuel than conventional chemical rockets, and it can draw power for its propulsion system from the sun. Many satelites these days use solar power to power their instruments and broadcast signals, but this is the only system I know of that uses solar power to go anywhere (solar sails don’t really count because it takes hundreds of years to get any significant speed up). Hoorah for SMART-1!