New Mission To Scour Our Interstellar Neighbourhood for Planets that Could Sustain Life (theguardian.com) 21
A new space mission to hunt for potentially habitable planets around Earth's closest neighbouring star system is under way. From a report: In a project with echoes of the 2009 film Avatar, an international collaboration of scientists in Australia and the US will search in the Alpha Centauri star system for earth-like planets that could sustain life. Alpha Centauri -- Earth's closest neighbouring star system -- consists of two sun-like stars, known as Alpha Centauri A and B, and a more distant red dwarf star. The Toliman mission, named after the ancient Arabic-derived name for the star system, will search for potential planets orbiting Alpha Centauri A and B.
The Toliman telescope, which is under construction, is set to be launched into low-earth orbit in 2023. It seeks to discover new planets in the "Goldilocks orbit" -- at the right distance, so the planet is neither too hot nor too cold to sustain life. Project leader Prof Peter Tuthill, of the University of Sydney, said: "If we're looking for life as we know it, usually the gold standard is a planet where liquid water could be present at the surface of the planet â" so it's not like a frozen snowball, and it doesn't boil all the water up into the atmosphere." "We know that life has evolved at least once, around a sun-like star on an earth-like planet," Tuthill said. "We try to look for other examples that are as close to that configuration as possible."
The Toliman telescope, which is under construction, is set to be launched into low-earth orbit in 2023. It seeks to discover new planets in the "Goldilocks orbit" -- at the right distance, so the planet is neither too hot nor too cold to sustain life. Project leader Prof Peter Tuthill, of the University of Sydney, said: "If we're looking for life as we know it, usually the gold standard is a planet where liquid water could be present at the surface of the planet â" so it's not like a frozen snowball, and it doesn't boil all the water up into the atmosphere." "We know that life has evolved at least once, around a sun-like star on an earth-like planet," Tuthill said. "We try to look for other examples that are as close to that configuration as possible."
pesky humans (Score:3, Funny)
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So they're going to probe politicians, Wall Street grifters and Silicon Valley hyper-nerds?
There's a lot more anuses out there, of course, but that would be a good start.
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Any reasonable species would realize that they should infect another planet shortly before they're finished exhausting their present one. And at the same time, search out several more options thus having a roadmap on where else to spread the infestation.
It won't matter. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It won't matter. (Score:4, Funny)
> it is eternally beyond our reach.
It's interstellar travel not online dating.
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A few thousand or even hundreds of thousands of years or so is not an eternity.
We just need to figure out immortality.
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And where to get the energy. Between getting up to speed and maintaining a biosphere for thousands or more years, need a lot of energy and there's only so much in a gram of matter, especially if fusion is the best you have to extract it.
One question (Score:2)
Do I get to spend some quality time with Anne Hathaway?
More research is needed (Score:2)
It's a self-sustaining project.
NASA: Give money
Government: Why?
"We need to explore for earth-like planets."
Why?
"In case we want to send people there"
Why?
"So we get there first."
Republicans: must beat the chinese and the russians
Democrats: Kennedy liked space.
Government: Here. Have money.
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The mission received $788,000 ($576,000) from the Australian government and is expected to be ready for science in the mid-2020s.
"Our plan is for an agile low-cost mission that delivers results by about the middle of the decade," Tuthill said.
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You left two reasons off:
Senate: Because it will create jobs in 50 states plus the District of Columbia.
House: Because it will create jobs in 435 congressional districts.
They could even call it the Senate and House Interstellar Transit.
4.37 Light years away (Score:2)
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You could go a little slower and have time for I Love Lucy.
20cm primary mirror (Score:2)
Kind of like launching my Meade ETX into orbit. When I hear space telescope I immediately think of huge, multi decade, billions of dollars machinery like Hubble, Spitzer, Webb (fingers crossed) so interesting that they are able to get good science out of a cube sat.
Why there? (Score:2)
It's a triple star system, what's the likelihood that there is any planet there with weird trajectories that can sustain life? Especially, one that is detectable, living on the surface. Even in our boring solar system with one sun, most planets are barren, and our closest two planet neighbors are utterly cold and way too hot
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1) It's really a double star system, because Proxima is so far away that it doesn't affect anything.
2) We've discovered many, many planets with stable orbits in binary systems. This isn't the 20th century anymore when everyone thought it was impossible, we know better.
3) We already know there's a planet in the habitable zone around Proxima Centauri, the planet is called Proxima b. What we don't know is whether such a planet can survive the solar flares and radiation in that orbit.
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We already _have_ detected _several_ planets there in the Goldilocks zone, with roughly 2 - 5 earth size!