Astronomers have spotted a potentially habitable planet orbiting our closest star. There have been some discussions about various exoplanets lately that have made a buzz with astronomers and space fans alike. And now they have spotted an exoplanet that may be the closest ever detected, and they did not use the Hubble.
Observations made with a telescope in Chile have indeed revealed a planet about as massive as Earth that orbits Proxima Centauri, which is a cosmic walk to the corner store at just 4.24 light-years away. And if conditions are right, the planet is in an orbit that’s warm enough for liquid water to survive on its surface. Illuminated by a pale reddish light, the world orbits the smallest star in a triple system known as Alpha Centauri, which shines in the southern constellation Centaurus. (Find out how to see Alpha Centauri and other objects in the southern sky.) Do you think we could ever travel there or should we focus on examining it further? With other large telescopes currently being built we could focus more resources on checking that newly discovered planet out.
A habitable, rocky planet around Proxima would be the most natural location to where our civilization could aspire to move after the sun will die, five billion years from now,” says Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and an adviser to the Breakthrough Starshot project. Even before today’s announcement, Breakthrough Starshot had announced its plan to send tiny spacecraft to the Alpha Centauri system later this century. But don’t expect any postcards from the new planet anytime soon: It will take more than 20 years for a spacecraft traveling at a monstrous 20 percent of the speed of light to reach Proxima Centauri, and another 4.24 years for any data to arrive back on Earth. Another potential way to check it out would be with SETI. After taking a break for a while they are ramping up their search for extraterrestials. They got a large investment from a billionaire.
Observations made with a telescope in Chile have indeed revealed a planet about as massive as Earth that orbits Proxima Centauri, which is a cosmic walk to the corner store at just 4.24 light-years away. And if conditions are right, the planet is in an orbit that’s warm enough for liquid water to survive on its surface. Illuminated by a pale reddish light, the world orbits the smallest star in a triple system known as Alpha Centauri, which shines in the southern constellation Centaurus. (Find out how to see Alpha Centauri and other objects in the southern sky.) Do you think we could ever travel there or should we focus on examining it further? With other large telescopes currently being built we could focus more resources on checking that newly discovered planet out.
A habitable, rocky planet around Proxima would be the most natural location to where our civilization could aspire to move after the sun will die, five billion years from now,” says Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and an adviser to the Breakthrough Starshot project. Even before today’s announcement, Breakthrough Starshot had announced its plan to send tiny spacecraft to the Alpha Centauri system later this century. But don’t expect any postcards from the new planet anytime soon: It will take more than 20 years for a spacecraft traveling at a monstrous 20 percent of the speed of light to reach Proxima Centauri, and another 4.24 years for any data to arrive back on Earth. Another potential way to check it out would be with SETI. After taking a break for a while they are ramping up their search for extraterrestials. They got a large investment from a billionaire.