A spaceship with a capacity of 2,400 people was unveiled, including a park, a school, and a hospital.

The spacecraft, named "Chrysalis," aims to undertake one of the longest journeys in human history, covering approximately 40 trillion kilometers in 400 years. The spacecraft is designed to carry 2,400 people, but the journey will be a lifetime experience for most passengers in space.

The spacecraft's goal is to carry its passengers at the end of the journey to the theoretically habitable planet Proxima Centauri b. This planet is part of the Alpha Centauri system and offers suitable conditions for life.

The "Chrysalis" project has won first prize in the Project Hyperion Design Competition, a competition for multi-generation interstellar spaceship designs. The engineers behind the project, Giacomo Infelise, Veronica Magli, Guido Sbrogio, Nevenka Martinello, and Federica Chiara Serpe, aim to create a turning point for humanity with this design.

The spacecraft's design is 58 kilometers long and arranged in interlocking layers. At its core are the landing craft and communication systems that will transport passengers to Proxima Centauri b. The first layer contains agricultural fields where plants, fungi, microorganisms, insects, and animals will be grown in controlled environments. Tropical and boreal forest ecosystems will also be created to preserve biodiversity.

There are also parks, schools and hospitals inside.

The ship's second layer will house shared living spaces such as parks, schools, hospitals, and libraries. The third layer will offer private living spaces for each household, along with systems that regulate temperature and air exchange. The fourth layer will house various industrial areas, from industrial facilities to services such as recycling, pharmaceutical production, and ship maintenance. The fifth layer will be filled with warehouses operated by robots.

In this project, births will be planned to ensure the sustainability of passenger lives, and the ideal population will be 1,500. Artificial intelligence will be used in management processes and social systems will be established to ensure intergenerational knowledge transfer. However, all these plans are purely theoretical. Engineers emphasize that such projects provide important information for future designs.

The "Chrysalis" project's design attracted attention for its innovative approaches to modular living and its system integrity. The competition jury praised the project for these features, and the winning team was awarded a $5,000 prize.

WHAT IS THE ALPHA CENTURY STAR SYSTEM?

Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to Earth and consists of three stars: Alpha Centauri A, Alpha Centauri B, and Proxima Centauri. It is approximately 4.37 light-years away, making it the closest star system known to humans.

• Alpha Centauri A: A main-sequence star similar to the Sun. Its light is slightly stronger than the Sun's and it is one of the two main stars that make up the system.
• Alpha Centauri B: A star located in the immediate vicinity of Alpha Centauri A, but is slightly fainter and has a reddish color.
• Proxima Centauri: This is the smallest star in the system and also the closest. Proxima Centauri orbits Alpha Centauri A and B, but is farther away. Proxima Centauri also hosts a habitable planet, Proxima Centauri b, discovered in 2016.

Proxima Centauri b has the potential to be a habitable planet, thought to share Earth-like characteristics. Therefore, the Alpha Centauri system is of great importance as a target for astronomical research and potential future space exploration.