How to Use solar sail in a Sentence

solar sail

noun
  • That's why solar sails should enable us to go much farther out into space.
    — Rhett Allain, WIRED, 27 Sep. 2024
  • The satellite will be propelled there by a sweeping solar sail.
    — WIRED, 20 Aug. 2022
  • These challenges are why solar sails aren't yet plying the vastness of space.
    — Kiona N. Smith, Space.com, 31 May 2026
  • Once unfurled, the solar sail will stretch across 30 feet (9 meters) per side.
    — Passant Rabie / Gizmodo, Quartz, 2 May 2024
  • As its name implies, LightSail 2 is not the first solar sail.
    — Robert Z. Pearlman, Scientific American, 23 July 2019
  • LightSail 2 was built to be the best-performing solar sail yet.
    — Jackie Wattles, CNN, 31 July 2019
  • Another is a science nerd's dream — a solar sail project that has been centuries in the making.
    — Jackie Wattles, CNN, 24 June 2019
  • This spacecraft would be equipped with a solar sail, using the sun’s energy to make its journey.
    — Amy Thompson, Smithsonian, 25 June 2019
  • Later on, solar sails might also make new types of missions possible.
    — Charlie Wood, Popular Science, 23 Jan. 2020
  • Future satellites could integrate graphene into the skin or use it to steer massive solar sails.
    — Mrigakshi Dixit, Interesting Engineering, 9 Apr. 2026
  • Photons, or particles of light, knock against the solar sail and bounce off, like they’re reflected from a mirror.
    — Margherita Bassi, Smithsonian Magazine, 10 Sep. 2024
  • Some scientists have even proposed using a solar sail to send a lightweight probe to another star.
    — Avery Thompson, Popular Mechanics, 6 Nov. 2018
  • The amount of force the photons will apply to the solar sail is equal to about 9 micro-Newtons per square meter.
    — Daniel Oberhaus, WIRED, 24 June 2019
  • The solution, perhaps, will rely on the principle of solar sails.
    — Ryan P. Smith, Smithsonian, 5 Apr. 2018
  • After about a month, atmospheric drag will overpower the solar sail, ending the test.
    — Robert Z. Pearlman, Scientific American, 23 July 2019
  • While solar sails are an old concept, humans are just now experimenting with the basic concept.
    — Avery Thompson, Popular Mechanics, 6 Nov. 2018
  • While three spacecraft would be powered by conventional fuel, the fourth would have a solar sail roughly a third of the size of a football field.
    — Elizabeth Howell, Space.com, 10 Oct. 2025
  • So what we're left with is primarily the challenge of building the material that will reflect light from the solar sail.
    — John Timmer, Ars Technica, 7 May 2018
  • The first solar sail prototype, a product of Japan's space agency, flew to space in 2010.
    — Jackie Wattles, CNN, 31 July 2019
  • Each exerts a little force on the future, like the accumulating photons behind a solar sail.
    — Gregory Barber, Wired, 10 Feb. 2022
  • Thus, even for a highly-advanced civilization, the authors argue that such a solar sail probe would be a project that would have no constituency.
    — Bruce Dorminey, Forbes, 25 May 2021
  • The laser on Izaña-2 could push space junk out of the way, in the same way that a laser can push a solar sail through the momentum of photons impacting on it.
    — Keith Cooper, Space.com, 15 Sep. 2025
  • With a solar sail, a spacecraft could keep going to the moon, to asteroids, to Jupiter — to anywhere the wind of light blows, using no fuel at all.
    — NBC News, 3 June 2019
  • In addition to being tough enough to survive a close encounter with the sun, solar sails for these missions need to be big enough to keep catching photons as far out as possible.
    — Kiona N. Smith, Space.com, 31 May 2026
  • The Canadian Space Agency has suggested the use of a solar sail to do most of the work, rather than using thruster fuel.
    — David Rothery, Discover Magazine, 29 Sep. 2017
  • On and around Earth, solar winds interfere with satellites, create auroras, and power solar sails in orbit.
    — David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, 31 July 2019
  • The Technion model involves affixing lightweight solar sails to a small satellite sent to L1.
    — Cara Buckley, New York Times, 2 Feb. 2024
  • Assuming everything goes as planned, the solar sail will raise LightSail 2 in its orbit about half a kilometer each day.
    — Robert Z. Pearlman, Scientific American, 23 July 2019
  • The middle-of-the-night rideshare features a deep space atomic clock, solar sail, clean and green rocket fuel, and even human ashes, including an astronaut's.
    — Fox News, 25 June 2019
  • Unfurling the sails Thermal management isn't the only challenge facing long-range solar sail missions.
    — Kiona N. Smith, Space.com, 31 May 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'solar sail.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: