Using a new propulsion system known as M2P2, it would be 10 times faster than the space shuttle and could zip by Voyager I, launched in 1977 and currently 6.8 billion miles away, at the very edge of the solar system.

Robert Winglee and colleagues at the University of Washington said they had just received a $500,000 grant from NASA to work on the system.

M2P2 stands for Mini-Magnetospheric Plasma Propulsion. It consists of a plasma chamber about the size of a large pickle jar, or about 10 inches square.

Solar cells and solenoid coils would power the creation of a dense magnetized plasma -- charged gas -- that would inflate an electromagnetic field around the spacecraft.

This field would be acted on by the solar wind -- a stream of charged particles steadily put out by the sun -- and would serve as a kind of solar sail.

The solar wind, while relatively weak, moves at 780,000 to 1.8 million miles an hour. It could theoretically push a spacecraft at speeds up to 180,000 miles per hour or 4.3 million miles a day.

By contrast, the space shuttle travels at about 18,000 miles per hour or 430,000 miles a day.

Last year NASA launched Deep Space 1, which uses ion propulsion. Last month it flew by an asteroid, taking measurements.