Astronomers may announce discovery of "Earth-like" planet only 4.24 light-away

[LongTomH]

From Phys.org: Scientists to unveil new Earth-like planet: report:

Scientists are preparing to unveil a new planet in our galactic neighbourhood which is "believed to be Earth-like" and orbits its star at a distance that could favour life, German weekly Der Spiegel reported Friday.

The exoplanet orbits a well-investigated star called Proxima Centauri, part of the Alpha Centauri star system, the magazine said, quoting anonymous sources.

"The still nameless planet is believed to be Earth-like and orbits at a distance to Proxima Centauri that could allow it to have liquid water on its surface—an important requirement for the emergence of life," said the magazine.

"Never before have scientists discovered a second Earth that is so close by," it said, adding that the European Southern Observatory (ESO) will announce the finding at the end of August.

Proxima Centauri is only 4.24 light years away; in interstellar terms, that's our backyard. A previous "Earth-like" superEarth, Kepler 452b circles a star 1,400 light-years away.

[rusty quoin]

1. It makes me think of the great "Another Earth" with Brit Marling.

[randome]

24. Excellent movie.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Meredith McIver approves of this post.[/center][/font][hr]

[Buckeye_Democrat]

2. Woo hoo! Now we can wreck Earth with abandon!

JOKING!!

Here's a couple relevant videos:

[Warren DeMontague]

26. right, people should understand the difference between "potentially habitable" and "habitable"

However, it's also worth noting that it was only 20 or so years ago that we even reached the point of being able to detect exoplanets at all. In the future we will likely be able to learn a whole ton more about them, particularly with space-based telescopes.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

29. I absolutely applaud the research!

Here's another video from the same source about a way to travel there (unmanned) in a reasonable amount of time:

If it was up to me, I'd devote more resources to exploring moons like Europa and Enceladus, or possibly drilling deep enough into Mars to reach liquid water, to search for life. The basis for that is that simple life exists everywhere on Earth (in natural non-lab conditions) where there's liquid water, even deep underground.

However, I love the exoplanet searches too!

[Warren DeMontague]

31. In full agreement with everything you say, here.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

32. Go science!

The science that focuses on long-term survival, understanding and well-being anyway.

[Calculating]

3. Cool

But 4 lightyears is still a VERYlarge distance. I believe it's also a red dwarf star, and those exhibit a variety of characteristics which are unfavorable to life. They have fierce solar activity and the planet would need to orbit very closely due to the low luminosity of the star. Basically you'd need to be right next to this volatile star which is constantly throwing storms of charged particles at you.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

4. Yep.

That reduces the chances of an atmosphere on a rocky planet too.

[krispos42]

27. A mere 25 trillion miles.

We just have to work on converting the deficits caused by Republicans into thrust on a 1 to 1 basis.

[dembotoz]

34. so maybe they will be trying to come here

that would explain trump

[Quackers]

42. That would only explain why intelligent life would flee, not come visit. nt

[major debacle]

5. And it would only take 100,000 years to reach it

... given current technology. That's only 5,000 generations, give or take.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

7. Yeah, with rocket fuel.

There's other options that could get us there sooner (see the 2nd video that I posted earlier in this thread), but those would require HUGE investments that obviously aren't going to happen anytime soon. Nor should it unless there's something definitively promising from more advanced observations.

I'm far more interested in unmanned exploration of moons like Europa at this point.

EDIT: And the video about interstellar travel doesn't even go into other problems, like running into stuff on the way there and other major concerns.

[StevieM]

9. Welcome to DU! I am impressed that you have managed to put up 614 posts in just 17 days.

My gut tells me that the moons of Saturn are a better place to go for extra terrestrial life in our solar system.

Enceladus is considered a good bet for life. And Titan offers the possibility of methane-based life forms.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

11. Thanks!

I've had some free time on my hands lately, but my posting rate should slow down later.

I'm also very pleased to be here! Political discussion on most of the internet is unbearable.

I'm not a biologist, but I'd rather stick with "what we know" about life and seek out the places with lots of liquid water. The water plumes from Enceladus fascinate me too.

[StrictlyRockers]

14. Thanks for contributing quality threads like this one to DU

Welcome and enjoy the intelligent community.

It is an oasis in the vast wasteland of internet trollishness.

[calimary]

17. Welcome to DU, Buckeye_Democrat!

Good to have you here! Political discussion can get pretty dicey sometimes, for sure.

This stuff is just mind-blowing! Too bad it won't be reachable in OUR lifetimes, but maybe our grandchildren will have a colony to visit or even to settle? By then, at the rate we're going in abusing this planet, we're probably gonna need another place to call home. I'd guess Mars would be the first step. But as a longtime "Star Trek" fan, I find myself fantasizing about space stations and Utopia Planitia fairly often these days.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

33. Thanks to you and everyone else here!

I'm also very thankful to the admins here who have obviously done well to keep out the trolls and kooks who pretty much ruin reasonable discussions.

[deathrind]

12. I would put my $$

Enceladus.

Lots of water and obvious geo-thermal activity going on deep inside. Hot vents here on Earth have shown us that life can exist...even thrive in an environment with out sun light.


Titan is also a very good candidate as well.

[jpak]

6. Rut Roh

[Jopin Klobe]

13. Dont Panic ...

... and, don't forget your towel ...

[Richard D]

8. The Dogon tribe

From Mali have stories of an aquatic race of humanoids that came to visit them from what we now know of as Proxima Centauri. Pretty trippy as they were talking about this way before Proxima was discovered.

[StrictlyRockers]

15. Wow, I remember reading about that.

The Dogon (not Vogon!) tribe in Mali knew that star was there long before they had advanced astronomy that could have given them that knowledge. It's kinda trippy..



Maybe this is where the Progenitors (a la David Brin's Uplift series) came from and seeded us.

[daleo]

25. I believe the Dogon story is about Sirius

It has a companion white dwarf, that they seemed to be aware of. There is speculation that a missionary may have told them of Sirius's unseen companion, but who knows? I like to think there is something to the story. There is a book called The Sirius Mystery, that goes into this. I read it some years back.

[Richard D]

35. Oops

Right you are.

[Orrex]

36. A Sirius misunderstanding.

[TeamPooka]

10. Since Trump's fans don't believe in science they won't realize we've left. nt

[Spitfire of ATJ]

16. It wasn't long ago when they assumed dwarf stars couldn't have planets.

[lumberjack_jeff]

38. Earth has "a planet"

The problem is that the planet orbiting proxima centauri is tide locked like our moon.

One face pointed at it's sun forever is not a good candidate for life.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

39. That's another bit of conventional dogma that will no doubt be disproved some day.

It could be one side is dense jungle and the other is fungi. Then again, our planet did the "plant and animal" thing but other planets might have something entirely different that thrives in it's given environment. I always take into account that earth spent a majority of its history as primordial soup and then came the Cambrian Explosion where life thrived. Then it spend hundreds of millions of years dominated by giant creatures.

The way I saw our timeline described once was if the entire age of the earth was represented by the height of the Washington Monument than the time since man first picked up a stone tool would be the height of a postage stamp.

[JesterCS]

18. Wouldn't it be fantastic if

One of the closest neighbor stars to us had life?

[Spitfire of ATJ]

40. Knowing our history we would conquer it.

[YOHABLO]

19. I'm trying to figure out what 4.2 light years is in laymen's terms. Forgetaboutit.

[Rincewind]

20. 1 lightyear is

5.88 Trillion miles, so 4.24 lightyears would be just under 25 Trillion miles.

[backscatter712]

21. Elite Dangerous is good for wrapping your head around that sort of thing:

That game measures distances within the solar system in light-seconds, and between stars in light-years.

The distance between the Earth and the Moon is about 1 light second and some change. Round it to about 200,000 miles

The distance between the Earth and the Sun is about 8 light minutes (and some change). Round it to about 100,000,000 miles.

And as mentioned, the distance to Proxima Centauri is about 4.24 light years, which is about 25,000,000,000,000 miles.

A looooooooong way.

[backscatter712]

22. It's possible that with the next generation of telescopes and space telescopes...

...that we'd be able to get some good observations of this one.

Most exoplanets are only detectable by observing their effects on their stars. Usually, it's done by measuring the red-shift or blue shift as the star wobbles towards or away from us as it's pulled ever so slightly by its planets.

But that planet around Proxima Centauri is so close that it might be possible, with a powerful enough telescope, to image it directly.

Probably will just result in a faint point of light. But spectroscopic analysis of that point of light could tell us its temperature, atmospheric composition, etc.

Damned cool!

[MrScorpio]

23. Wait until they get a load of us...

[NightWatcher]

28. And the folks at Nestle have already started stealing their water from underground

[Orrex]

37. Sick, cynical minds think alike...

I was braced to post that same thought.

[Marr]

30. If that's true it would suggest such planets are very common.

[LongTomH]

41. That's the real impact of this discovery.

I should have stated that with the original post. This is an 'almost Earth-like planet' in our galactic neighborhood. That almost certainly means there are many more.

[karadax]

43. 4.24 light years = communication is possible within a lifetime.

To me this is fantastic news. This gives us something to aim for that isn't too far away. If we can get something there within a 10-20 year travel time then communicating with it will take 4.24 years. Exciting stuff !

The tin foil hat side of me wonders what the next announcement will be. I mean they started out by announcing the possibility of exoplanets many thousands of light years away but miss one that's so very close to us ?

Aliens in 30 years. I'll bet money on it.