[Igor Antunov]

See source for more.

The hunt for exoplanets has been heating up in recent years. Since it began its mission in 2009, over four thousand exoplanet candidates have been discovered by the Kepler mission, several hundred of which have been confirmed to be “Earth-like” (i.e. terrestrial). And of these, some 216 planets have been shown to be both terrestrial and located within their parent star’s habitable zone (aka. “Goldilocks zone”).

But in what may prove to be the most exciting find to date, the German weekly Der Spiegel announced recently that astronomers have discovered an Earth-like planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, just 4.25 light-years away. Yes, in what is an apparent trifecta, this newly-discovered exoplanet is Earth-like, orbits within it’s sun’s habitable zone, and is within our reach. But is this too good to be true?

For over a century, astronomers have known about Proxima Centauri and believed that it is likely to be part of a trinary star system (along with Alpha Centauri A and B). Located just 0.237 ± 0.011 light years from the binary pair, this low-mass red dwarf star is also 0.12 light years (~7590 AUs) closer to Earth, making it the closest star system to our own.

In the past, the Kepler mission has revealed several Earth-like exoplanets that were deemed to be likely habitable. And recently, an international team of researchers narrowed the number of potentially-habitable exoplanets in the Kepler catalog down to the 20 that are most likely to support life. However, in just about all cases, these planets are hundreds (if not thousands) of light years away from Earth.

What’s more, the folks at Project Starshot are certainly excited by the news. As part of Breakthrough Initiatives – a program founded by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner to search for intelligent life (with backing from Stephen Hawking and Mark Zuckerberg) – Starshot intends to send a laser-sail driven-nanocraft to Alpha Centauri in the coming years.

This craft, they claim, will be able to reach speeds of up to 20% the speed of light. At this speed, it will able to traverse the 4.37 light years that lie between Earth and Alpha Centauri in just 20 years. But with the possible discovery of an Earth-like planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, which lies even closer, they may want to rethink that objective.

http://www.universetoday.com/130276/ear ... scovered/#

Not 100% confirmed because scientists like to be coy lest they be proven wrong, but exciting nonetheless. All of our collective instruments need to point at this planet with great scrutiny so we can confirm if indeed, there is a second earth out there, ready to be conquered from its indigenous species/colonized.

We can get probes there within 2-3 decades, humans in perhaps a century with 60's era nuclear propulsion technology. So let's get excited.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

ready to be conquered from its indigenous species/colonized.

We can get probes there within 2-3 decades, humans in perhaps a century with 60's era nuclear propulsion technology. So let's get excited.

Terran Empire! Terran Empire!

However, let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet. This hasn't actually been confirmed and there's no specific scientists as of yet that I'm aware of who have asserted that the details being claimed are true as far as we know. It could indeed be information leaked ahead of an official announcement, but it could also be people very excited and jumping the gun prematurely.

[Beren]

So let's get excited.

Excited about what? We haven't even landed on Mars yet. Human civilisation might be on the verge of collapse, but we should be excited that there might be an Earth-like planet out there just 4.25 light-years away, which is supposed to be within our reach somehow.

[yiostheoy]

When I went to Fiji on a scuba trip I could see the big Southern Cross in the sky every night.

I did not know that Alpha Centauri was just to the left of it or I would have trained by bino's on it then.

Alpha Centauri is the closest star to our Sun. It is only 4 light years away.

This tells us that what we are looking at in the sky was there 4 years ago.

This is one of the few stars we can be pretty sure is still there.

All the other stars and galaxies that we can see in the night sky may all have expired millions of years ago, and what we are looking at is merely the remnants of a fireworks show.

[Potemkin]

This is one of the few stars we can be pretty sure is still there.

All the other stars and galaxies that we can see in the night sky may all have expired millions of years ago, and what we are looking at is merely the remnants of a fireworks show.

Actually, we can be pretty sure that most of the stars we see in the night sky are still there. After all, the Milky Way galaxy is only about 100,000 light years across, which is only a small fraction of an average star's lifespan. Even the Andomeda Galaxy is only about 2 million light years away, so we can be pretty sure that most of the stars in that galaxy still exist too.

[Albert]

Finally a planet that we can have only for white people. Lets hope the rich won't ruin it for us with desire for cheap labour.

[Igor Antunov]

If it can support liquid water on its surface, even if the atmospheric composition is off, and gravity is high, and even if tidally locked, and being next to a mild dwarf star; we can expect a rather cozy world. Furthermore it is probably a super earth, i.e larger, otherwise they wouldn't have detected it because detecting something that isn't at least 2-3 times larger than earth is almost impossible.

[Beren]

If it can support liquid water on its surface, even if the atmospheric composition is off, and gravity is high, and even if tidally locked, and being next to a mild dwarf star; we can expect a rather cozy world. Furthermore it is probably a super earth, i.e larger, otherwise they wouldn't have detected it because detecting something that isn't at least 2-3 times larger than earth is almost impossible.

So what if it's there Igor? How far could we be from interstellar travel? And how far are we from climate catastrophe or WWIII? Are you being supposed to be a visionary now?

[Rugoz]

We can get probes there within 2-3 decades, humans in perhaps a century with 60's era nuclear propulsion technology. So let's get excited.

No, we can't.

If it can support liquid water on its surface, even if the atmospheric composition is off, and gravity is high, and even if tidally locked, and being next to a mild dwarf star; we can expect a rather cozy world. Furthermore it is probably a super earth, i.e larger, otherwise they wouldn't have detected it because detecting something that isn't at least 2-3 times larger than earth is almost impossible.

IF it has a sufficiently dense atmosphere.

Mars is also in the habitable zone of our solar system and it's far from cozy.

[Igor Antunov]

Mars is too small to maintain an atmosphere long term and Venus is just out of the Habitable zone. Pity.

[Rancid]

I think humans should evolve into a war like species and kill anything that lives on all other star systems.

[Potemkin]

I think humans should evolve into a war like species and kill anything that lives on all other star systems.

We're likely to do that even without evolving into a war-like species, Rancid. We're already killing off most other species on our own planet in one of the biggest mass extinctions in the history of life on Earth.

[Beren]

I think humans should evolve into a war like species and kill anything that lives on all other star systems.

Yeah, we should scorch the whole galaxy and beyond!

It must be our destiny!

[Hong Wu]

This stuff is silly, there is no feasible way to transport people to other solar systems that looks remotely possible, and when they say "earth-like" they mean they think they've found circumstantial evidence of a planet that has roughly the same size. But the same size doesn't necessarily mean anything.

[anasawad]

Scientists are already working on finding a way for interstellar travel.
And we already came up with successful ones like solar sails for example.

What are the problems ? well, the main one is time, we are not evolved or advanced enough to survive the time needed for interstellar travel.
Anther problem is the nature of the universe it self. We think of our selves as powerful and amazing but we're living in a safe planet, in a considerably somewhat safe solar system, and in a quit neighborhood of the galaxy.

But even if we tried to leave our own solar system, even if everything else in the universe, mainly radiation was overcomed and handled. We have to survive a huge field of planetesimals and other objects sorrounding the solar system. (Oort cloud)
We've already found a considerably large number of things around the solar system that not only can be a huge problem if we were to pass it, but even missing with it could cause catastrophic consequences.

Then ofcourse surviving the trip to anther solar system is an entirely different thing and would probably require us to build large enough vessels to carry all the resources and tools we need.

Maybe we can reach the point of interstellar travel within 100-200 years in the future.

I think humans should evolve into a war like species and kill anything that lives on all other star systems.

Lets not get our hopes up that much.
We are good at killing things here on earth because we're part of it.
Other planets would probably have much harsher conditions for life on it, and what ever life we find would be far more adaptive to it than us.
Even if not intellegint life or even multicellular life forms. Single cell life forms on what ever planet we come across will inevitably have the upper hand against us on its planet.

Finally a planet that we can have only for white people. Lets hope the rich won't ruin it for us with desire for cheap labour.

Well, if we want to look at it statistically. Considering that there are lets say there are 1 billion white people now. On the other hand there are by the very least 5-6 billion people mostly Asian looks or darker. And considering the rates of integration (i.e inter racial breeding) and fertility rates between white nations and non-white nations.
IF we assumed we managed to find a habitable planet other than earth and in the same time managed to develop technology for interstellar travel, and terraforming in the same time within the next 200 years.
By that time, being "white" would probably be something very rare, if there was any full white people left by then.
Both white and black people are actually only a fraction of the population compared to Asians (yellow) and in 200-300 years we all would most likely look simillar to Asians not too light and not too dark.




Note: not sure which comment had this, but for finding a planet exactly like earth with all its charactaristics. Statistically it is impossible that there isn't an exact copy of earth somewhere out there. If not countless number of copies of earth, with possibly the exact same life evolving or even far more evolved on it.
When we're considering stars, there are trillions and trillions of stars in the observable universe alone.
And the number is much much larger when we talk about planets.
Considering that the elements that makes earth what it is and the basic elements of life are the most common and basic elements in the entire universe. There will be countless planets like earth, and not just possibly but definitly much more planets with life on it.

If we assumed 1 in every billion planet has sufficient conditions for basic life forms (mainly single cell life) to evolve. There will be billions of planets filled with life already.

[Rancid]

This stuff is silly, there is no feasible way to transport people to other solar systems that looks remotely possible, and when they say "earth-like" they mean they think they've found circumstantial evidence of a planet that has roughly the same size. But the same size doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Can't they also tell if there is a water by looking at the spectrum of light it reflects?

[Rugoz]

Can't they also tell if there is a water by looking at the spectrum of light it reflects?

So far only of gas giants transiting the star, by doing a spectral analysis of the atmosphere. With next generation telescopes it should be possible to analyze smaller planets nearby.

[Beren]

What are the problems ? well, the main one is time

Sure, time is usually a big problem, but the main problem is that our Babylon Tower, through which we mean to reach the stars, might collapse way before it could happen.

[Igor Antunov]

Project starshot is entirely feasible, and can be set up in just a decade. By limiting the size of the probes and attaching a tiny little sail we can get them to 20% speed of light by pushing them with a laser. They have no way to stop, so blasting thousands of them at once in the direction of a star system ensures that some will end up encountering planets. They will be equipped with cameras, detectors, etc. They communicate back by interfering/interacting with the laser that is their method of propulsion.

The ground based laser is the main challenge. It would simply need to be very large. Completely doable, just expensive for a one time deal, would probably cost as much as a fully equipped super-carrier.

Beyond that sending humans would take longer, but could still be done in a lifetime or two. We need to build this 60's proof of concept:




It would need to be built in orbit. Would probably cost near as much as a US military 12 month Afghanistan vacation. To build anything much bigger, we would need to set up extensive orbital infrastructure.

[Beren]

Completely doable, just expensive for a one time deal, would probably cost as much as a fully equipped super-carrier.

Would probably cost near as much as a US military 12 month Afghanistan vacation.

I'm sure that China has the money.