An ever-handy device, a tractor beam from a Galaxy-class starship holds the small Delta Flyer spacecraft in place on "Star Trek: Voyager." Got a derelict spaceship you need to tow back to star base?

Tractor beams make intuitive sense. Matter and energy interact with each other in countless ways throughout the Universe. Magnetism and gravity are both natural forces that can draw objects together, ...

WASHINGTON – Tractor beams, energy rays that can move objects, are a science fiction mainstay. But now they are becoming a reality -- at least for moving very tiny objects. Researchers from the ...

The tractor beam has been an iconic feature of the scifi genre since the early days of Star Wars, when the Death Star pulled in the Millennium Falcon with sonic waves, trapping the spacecraft and its ...

SCIENCE fiction is turning into science fact as researchers reveal they've developed Star Trek-style tractor beams that could move humans. The beams have only been tested on a small 2cm strip of ...

First researchers created a tractor beam that levitates, pulls and pushes objects, just like in Star Trek. Then they modified the design so you can make one at home. Eric Mack has been a CNET ...

Eric Mack has been a CNET contributor since 2011. Eric and his family live 100% energy and water independent on his off-grid compound in the New Mexico desert. Eric uses his passion for writing about ...

‘Tractor beams’ of light that pull objects towards them are no longer science fiction. Scientists have now demonstrated how a tractor beam can in fact be realized on a small scale. 'Tractor beams' of ...

A new "tractor beam" can levitate large objects in midair, using only sound. So far, researchers have floated spheres as large as 0.6 inches (16 millimeters) in diameter and moved orbs as large as 0.8 ...

It is the first time an object has been successfully held and controlled in mid-air (Asier Marzo, Bruce Drinkwater and Sriram Subramanian) Darth Vader’s Death Star and Captain Kirk’s Starship ...

The tubes of the Internet saw some extra traffic recently when NASA announced funding for a team of researchers to study tractor beams. That’s right, tractor beams, as in Star Trek and Star Wars (and ...