There's an effect called photophoretic propulsion. You could have seen it in a Crookes radiometer. One of the NIAC awards of 2023 was granted to a team that hopes to use this effect to develop a propulsion system. This can allow flying in altitudes nothing else can fly and possibly even explore other worlds.
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? More about the NIAC grant:
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2023/PhotophoreticPropulsionEnablingMesosphereExploration/
https://bargatin.seas.upenn.edu/
00:00 Intro
01:19 Levitation in science
05:47 Coming up with a design
11:33 Testing the design
15:34 Potential applications
23:10 Challenges
28:03 Other worlds
33:18 Outro
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