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A Lightsail Powered By Millions of Lasers Could Reach Alpha Centauri in 20 Years
https://interestingengineering.com/lase … n-20-years
‘Lost in Space': How Far Away Is Alpha Centauri, and Could Humans Live There?
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/los … 00695.html
Copied from another topic again...
digitalwaala wrote:Impression of Planet Proxima Centauri with New the stars, Centauri a and Centauri B - Information about Proxima Centauri .
Astronomers observe planet orbiting b Centauri
https://www.nanowerk.com/news2/space/newsid=59338.php
Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2021-12-08 13:13:54)
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Scientists envision what Mars would look like as an exoplanet
https://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Scien … t_999.html
In science fiction movies and television shows, real-life locations on Earth, such as California's Redwood National Forest and the Sahara Desert, have long been used to represent alien worlds. But recently, in a Star Trek-style twist, a group of scientists, including researchers at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado Boulder, have been using a planet in our own backyard-Mars-to help characterize and identify habitable, Earth-like planets in other solar systems.
An international multi-disciplinary team of modelers, observational scientists and theoreticians from three science disciplines-space physics, planetary sciences and astrophysics-has been working synergistically to extrapolate their current understanding of Mars to determine which planets beyond Earth's solar system are most likely to host life. The answer hinges on the exoplanets' atmospheres-and what it takes for each planet to retain those atmospheres, including Mars if it were circling a different star.
One example the team is studying is the case of "Exoplanet Mars" orbiting a dim, class-M star, which is only about 4% as bright as our sun and nearly 3,000 degrees Celsius cooler. This research will provide a better understanding of how long a planet like Mars could retain an atmosphere if it orbited this smaller, cooler, but more active star. The preliminary results indicate the rate at which Exoplanet Mars would lose its atmosphere would be larger than what the real-world planet has experienced.
"Mars is a remarkable natural experiment that demonstrates how its atmosphere and, therefore, its habitability can be affected by the properties of both the planet and the star it orbits," said David Brain, a planetary researcher at LASP and the team's leader. The challenge, he added, is assembling the expertise, the observations and the model results to understand the relative importance of each property, with the goal of making predictions about the habitability of individual planets orbiting other stars.
This multi-disciplinary, cutting-edge approach is made possible by the new Magnetic fields, Atmosphere, and the Connection to Habitability (MACH) NASA DRIVE Science Center, which Brain leads. DRIVE Science Centers (DSC) are part of NASA's integrated multi-agency initiative to address grand challenge goals.
"Our center has brought together experts from many scientific disciplines to collaboratively address big-picture questions like the habitability of alien planets," said Brain.
Organizing scientists from many different disciplines is not always easy. Brain said the team members have had to learn how to communicate more effectively and figure out how to meld models developed by scientists in disciplines that had diverged from each other in recent decades.
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What's happening in the depths of distant worlds?
https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/What … s_999.html
The physics and chemistry that take place deep inside our planet are fundamental to the existence of life as we know it. But what forces are at work in the interiors of distant worlds, and how do these conditions affect their potential for habitability?
New work led by Carnegie's Earth and Planets Laboratory uses lab-based mimicry to reveal a new crystal structure that has major implications for our understanding of the interiors of large, rocky exoplanets. Their findings are published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"The interior dynamics of our planet are crucial for maintaining a surface environment where life can thrive-driving the geodynamo that creates our magnetic field and shaping the composition of our atmosphere," explained Carnegie's Rajkrishna Dutta, the lead author. "The conditions found in the depths of large, rocky exoplanets such as super-Earths would be even more extreme."
Silicate minerals make up most of the Earth's mantle and are thought to be a major component of the interiors of other rocky planets, as well, based on calculations of their densities. On Earth, the structural changes induced in silicates under high pressure and temperature conditions define key boundaries in Earth's deep interior, like that between the upper and lower mantle.
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Red Dwarfs Will Be Humanity’s Last Home Before the Universe Dies: When everything else is gone, we could survive for trillions of years around them.
https://antoniomelonio-cosmos.medium.co … 67fcfa6081
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Red Dwarfs Will Be Humanity’s Last Home Before the Universe Dies: When everything else is gone, we could survive for trillions of years around them.
https://antoniomelonio-cosmos.medium.co … 67fcfa6081
If humanity (or whatever we evolve into) hasn't mastered nuclear fusion by 1 billion AD, then they don't deserve to exist. We won't reach the stars without it, anyhow. With the ability to build fusion reactors, humanity doesn't need stars. Just find a gas giant with suitable moons and build fusion reactors big enough to warm and light a large terraformed moon. The hydrogen reserves of a planet like Saturn could last eons. It can be harvested from the exosphere.
We may eventually be able to convert matter into energy with almost perfect efficiency using artificial blackholes. Feed them using a plasma accelerator at a rate that matches evaporation. Voila! A machine that converts matter into energy with very high efficiency. Just don't forget to feed it.
A Dyson Sphere is another interesting possibility. It would be easier to build around a red dwarf, which has a radius only 50% larger than Jupiter. Red dwarfs are really nothing like our own sun. They are denser than any terrestrial planet and the tortous magnetic fields created by their convective plasma, spit out ionising radiation with intensity far greater than any solar storm on our own passive sun. Probably not the safest environment to be around.
Last edited by Calliban (2022-03-14 04:51:04)
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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There are recent suggestions that Red Dwarf Stars magnetic eruptions are more towards the poles, and so there may be a bit of mercy for planets that orbit around the star's equator. But still a very alien environment.
The Trappist planets seem to have lots of Steam/Water/Ice, so I am inclined to believe that they will have atmospheres. However, Proxima is much more of a "Demon" star, "Flare" Star. So, it favors the idea that not all Red Dwarf planets will be stripped of atmosphere and oceans.
http://www.trappist.one/#:~:text=TRAPPI … in%20orbit.
Conditions for planets for Proxima are likely not as good as that, but still....
Proxima b
Proxima c
Proxima d
Of course, you can look those up. I am currently very interested in Proxima d, and also the hope that Proxima Centauri may have many Dwarf Planets as well, most likely outside the "Habitable Zone".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centauri_d
I like it because it is very likely to be tidally locked. I anticipate that even if it does not have an atmosphere, it will have ice deposits on the "Night Side". Perhaps even an ocean under the ice.
In the unlikely case that it did have an atmosphere of significance, I would hope to find my "Dark Sea" on the night side of this world.
Or, if the descendants of Humans could generate a protective magnetic shield, then as terraformed there would be possible such a sea.
In that case oceans would not cover the bulk of the planet, only small seas on the night side. Winds in places would be horrific. But they might be periodic as in Antarctic Katabatic winds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katabatic … l%20energy.
So, you might need to seek shelter for a few weeks, when the winds blew. Then after that the night side heated, and relatively still you could sail on the seas. As time went by, the night side would cool off while the day side heated, up and then the winds would start again.
Windmills for power of course. Maybe gardens inside of protective holes in the ground where LED's light the gardens when the wind blew.
Sailing the night side seas, you would see the stars reflected in the water under a stary night sky.
Done.
Your idea of harvesting Hydrogen does make sense, for some Rogue Worlds as well. Perhaps Proxima c will offer that as well.
Last edited by Void (2022-03-14 19:16:10)
Done.
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A Hybrid Interstellar Mission Using Antimatter
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Tiny Swarming Spacecraft Could Establish Communications with Proxima Centauri
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Want to Leave the Solar System? Here’s a Route to Take
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