Planet!

[auroracloud]

I just thought I'd let you know, a planet has been discovered orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System, within the habitable zone. Which means liquid water and therefore life as we know it could exist on its surface, though there still are other question marks like how the radiation from the star would affect things. But in any case, this is thrilling. Being the closest star outside our solar system, we can observe it much better than planets around more distant stars.

http://www.eso.org/public/usa/news/eso1629/

Comments

[trobadora]

Oh yay, it's real! There was some skepticism after the initial Spiegel article, but I'm glad to hear it actually exists.

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was excited when I heard about the article, but didn't dare to hope too much yet before there was confirmation. But now there is so... Yay!

And the Alpha Centauri system is where there's been crazy-sounding but perhaps possible plans to send some light-propelled nanocraft that could take just decades rather than millennia to get there and observe, so if that ever works out, there could be a way to find out more about the planet. That's pretty mind-boggling to think about.

[trobadora]

Yeah, the laser-propelled miniprobes are so cool. We may actually be able to see what this planet looks like in our lifetime!

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

Amazing, isn't it? It's like every now and then I realise that we live in science fiction.

[trobadora]

We really do. It's not so long ago they actually thought planets were super-rare; today they seem to be finding new ones every other moment. And now this. It's fantastic. :D

[tinny]

That is indeed very cool! Stephen Hawking has calculated that a probe could be built that is capable of being accelerated to reach it in only a few years (decades)! Exciting!

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

Yeah, those probes Hawking was talking about, I was excited about it already before this news came out, but now to think what there might be to investigate...!!! Even if the planet doesn't actually have life, we could learn so much about conditions for Earth-like planets elsewhere in the galaxy.