A new type of interplanetary solar sail has been woven by scientists at Finnish Meteorological Institute.

The spiderweb-like sail is designed to catch the wind of ionized gas that blows from the Sun, carrying spacecraft to the outer reaches of the solar system, or letting them tack back and forth through the asteroid belt on exploration or mining missions.

They plan to reel out long wires from a spacecraft and pump a positive electric charge into them, so that they repel the heavy positive ions in the solar wind. That way a wire only microns across can feel the force of a broad swath of passing plasma, behaving like a sail many meters across.