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Pale Red *Dots* ESO | Proxima b confirmed UPDATE 2017 PaleRedDots!!


Spaceception

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It's about time!!!! We're FINALLY doing a detailed search for potentially habitable exoplanets around our closest neighbor (Other than the sun), Proxima Centauri!!! The observing will take about 2 months and will use the Doppler method to find them.

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Yay!!!

June 19th, 2017, ESO has launched a second campaign to search for planets around Barnard's star, and Ross 154! As well as continuing the search for additional planets around Proxina centauri.

 

Edited by Spaceception
New project!
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Very cool. I hope they find something. The more Earth-like planets we find the better. Implications? Maybe a better overall interest in science from the general public. That's the best thing we can hope for.

Anything beyond that remains in the realm of science fiction and will remain so for hundreds to a thousand years. It'll take that long to develop the technology to do anything more then just look at it.

I myself hope that one day in this generation we can at least get spectral readings from exo planet atmospheres. 

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Then we know that a habitable planet orbits Proxima. Presumable someone will listen with some radio antenna there and find nothing artificial. Other than that, not much will occur the next some years. Of course, this would be interesting and a good place to look for signs of live via some advanced telescopes or compare the differences between this planet and Earth. But not a lot will happen.

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2 minutes ago, Motokid600 said:

I myself hope that one day in this generation we can at least get spectral readings from exo planet atmospheres. 

Have you heard of the James Webb Space Telescope?

 

1 minute ago, Kaos said:

Then we know that a habitable planet orbits Proxima. Presumable someone will listen with some radio antenna there and find nothing artificial. Other than that, not much will occur the next some years. Of course, this would be interesting and a good place to look for signs of live via some advanced telescopes or compare the differences between this planet and Earth. But not a lot will happen.

Don't you think that interstellar travel and exoplanet hunting would be closer studied?

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No. It is not that a difference between traveling 5 lightyears or 20 lightyears. We surely have plenty of habitable planets in the range of 20 lightyears, but that did not motivate us, either. We have reached 0.002 lightyears of distance with Voyager 1 and no mission that I am aware of is even planed by some space agency to build some craft that flies faster outwards than Voyager 1. So I do not see any plans to go there in the near future, unless we develop some means of warp drive, teleportation or other non-predictable scifi-technology.

With orion drive or high density laser combined with better miniaturization or something I consider it possible to reach other systems, but I do not think this will happen in the near future, as this still would be a huge effort.

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The JWST is an infrared telescope. I do not think it will be able to take an actual photo of an exoplanet which is nearly what we would need for a spectral analysis. 

Interstellar travel? Heh, no... Let's worry about interplanetary travel first. Baby steps.

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2 minutes ago, Kaos said:

No. It is not that a difference between traveling 5 lightyears or 20 lightyears. We surely have plenty of habitable planets in the range of 20 lightyears, but that did not motivate us, either. We have reached 0.002 lightyears of distance with Voyager 1 and no mission that I am aware of is even planed by some space agency to build some craft that flies faster outwards than Voyager 1. So I do not see any plans to go there in the near future, unless we develop some means of warp drive, teleportation or other non-predictable scifi-technology.

With orion drive or high density laser combined with better miniaturization or something I consider it possible to reach other systems, but I do not think this will happen in the near future, as this still would be a huge effort.

All of those exoplanets are 11-17 ly, if we tried to go to them, it'd take longer than a human lifespan, while in the case of Proxima, we could get there in a human lifespan with current/near-term tech. Granted it'd take 40-70 years, but still.

4 minutes ago, Motokid600 said:

The JWST is an infrared telescope. I do not think it will be able to take an actual photo of an exoplanet which is nearly what we would need for a spectral analysis. 

Interstellar travel? Heh, no... Let's worry about interplanetary travel first. Baby steps.

It would take a spectral analysis through a transit.

We could still do a long-term study of what it would take.

3 minutes ago, Albert VDS said:

I can't imagine that there wont be any planets around it, let alone a dwarf planet.

Really? This article says otherwise. http://www.space.com/24894-exoplanets-habitable-zone-red-dwarfs.html

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One can get 100 lightyears in a human lifetime with near-term technology, considering the effect of time dilation. It would require ridiculous large crafts in the start, though. Bridge the gap between 0.002 ly and 5 ly is much more complicated than between 5 ly and 20 ly. And I see no serious plan to move there. In fact there is no plan I know of even building satellites around Neptune, Pluto, Eris or Sedna, because of high delta-v requirements.

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13 minutes ago, Kaos said:

One can get 100 lightyears in a human lifetime with near-term technology, considering the effect of time dilation. It would require ridiculous large crafts in the start, though. Bridge the gap between 0.002 ly and 5 ly is much more complicated than between 5 ly and 20 ly. And I see no serious plan to move there. In fact there is no plan I know of even building satellites around Neptune, Pluto, Eris or Sedna, because of high delta-v requirements.

Best case scenario, what do you think would happen?

Also, the only "Near-ish-term" technology that could get us to the stars well within a human lifetime with time dilation is anti-matter rockets, which you would go to Jupiter for, but we still don't know how to collect/contain enough of it for a long time, as well as a magnetic sail to filter the anti-matter, and the magnetic nozzle to channel the explosion of matter/anti-matter smashing together.

Edited by Spaceception
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24 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

Maybe you didn't read the wont part. In any case, there's a lot of matter around starts when they are formed, so it's highly unlikely that there is nothing.
Even more unlikely that the star closet to us doesn't have any planets when most other do.

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1 minute ago, Albert VDS said:

Maybe you didn't read the wont part. In any case, there's a lot of matter around starts when they are formed, so it's highly unlikely that there is nothing.
Even more unlikely that the star closet to us doesn't have any planets when most other do.

Oh awkward.

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7 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

Best case scenario, what do you think would happen?

...

Best case scenario? People would get more interested in space, we send satellites to all planets and various minor planets and asteroids. We build up permanent colonies on Moon, Mars, Venus, and quite some Asteroids in the next 30 years. The additional technology we are forced to develop by doing so helps to solve a variety of problems on earth. Then we reach out for the stars.

But that is best case only. I would not totally exclude it but consider it very very unlikely.

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1 minute ago, Kaos said:

Best case scenario? People would get more interested in space, we send satellites to all planets and various minor planets and asteroids. We build up permanent colonies on Moon, Mars, Venus, and quite some Asteroids in the next 30 years. The additional technology we are forced to develop by doing so helps to solve a variety of problems on earth. Then we reach out for the stars.

But that is best case only. I would not totally exclude it but consider it very very unlikely.

That would be a great scenario. Fingers crossed :D

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Just now, legoclone09 said:

Wsn't it about bringing them up? I though you could make them there.

Part of the reason, I believe, is that the public didn't want anything related to nuclear in LEO, they thought that if something went wrong, the radiation would be spread across the world and everyone would die:/

Luckily, the dream hasn't died: http://news.discovery.com/space/galaxies/want-a-starship-think-big-think-really-big-131029.htm

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Bit of an update for this post: If we end up finding a Habitable Exoplanet around Proxima, I'm going to change the name of this post so we can talk about the planetary system, and I'd like 1 thing please:

1: Someone, ANYONE to make a planet pack for it.

Fingers crossed for a planetary system/habitable planet around Proxima! :cool:

 

Edited by Spaceception
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12 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

Part of the reason, I believe, is that the public didn't want anything related to nuclear in LEO, they thought that if something went wrong, the radiation would be spread across the world and everyone would die:/

Luckily, the dream hasn't died: http://news.discovery.com/space/galaxies/want-a-starship-think-big-think-really-big-131029.htm

Why not above the Van Allen Belts? People *shouldn't* worry about that.

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