These Tiny Flyers Levitate on the Sun’s Heat Alone

Sunlight is all that’s needed to keep these tiny aircraft aloft

Sun-powered fliers could use photophoretic forces to hover in the mesosphere, gathering data from a region off limits to planes and balloons.

These tiny flyers levitate on the Sun’s heat alone

Design could help to probe the ‘ignorosphere’, a layer of ultra-thin air that has largely escaped exploration by balloons, aircraft and satellites. Design could help to probe the ‘ignorosphere’, a layer of ultra-thin air that has largely escaped exploration by balloons, aircraft and satellites.