Stephen Hawking wants to explore the star system where scientists just found an Earth-like planet

The discovery of Proxima b, the closest-possible Earth-like planet outside of our own solar system, has the scientific community hot and bothered.

Perhaps no one should be more thrilled than Stephen Hawking. The famed astrophysicist has been one of the leading figures in the search for extraterrestrial life, launching a project named Breakthrough Starshot with hundreds of millions in funding.

The $100 million initiative, funded by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, announced in April that it planned to send a nanocraft probe that weighs just a few grams to Alpha Centauri, which just happens to be the star system that houses Proxima b. While it hadn't announced exactly where the probe was going, we're willing to bet Proxima b will be toward the top of the list after Wednesday's announcement.

See photos of the newly-found exoplanet

The tiny spacecraft will be far too small to transport humans to the new planet, but it is humanity's best shot at getting a close up look at the exoplanet during a human lifetime. Conventional spacecraft would take anywhere from 20,000 to 160,000 years to reach Alpha Centauri some four lightyears away. But Breakthrough Starshot aims to make the journey in 20 years by using lasers to propel the nanocraft at 20 percent of the speed of light.

The team behind the nanocraft technology published another key breakthrough the same day Proxima b dominated headlines. Researchers at Harvard University working on the project noted in their paper that they think they've discovered a way to avoid the potentially catastrophic damage the nanocraft could suffer if it encounters gas and dust on its trek.

Learn more about the new planet:

After the probe reaches its destination, it will scan for habitable conditions and even signs of life, but that may not be likely. According to reports, the planet reportedly receives about 100 times more radiation than Earth, which makes the odds of microbes surviving in the atmosphere unlikely.

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