One Star Over, a Planet That Might Be Another Earth
Another Earth could be circling the star right next door to us.
Astronomers announced on Wednesday that they had detected a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest neighbor to our solar system. Intriguingly, the planet is in the star’s “Goldilocks zone,” where it may be neither too hot nor too cold. That means liquid water could exist at the surface, raising the possibility for life.
Although observations in recent years, particularly by NASA’s Kepler planet-finding mission, have uncovered a bounty of Earth-size worlds throughout the galaxy, this one holds particular promise because it might someday, decades from now, be possible to reach. It’s 4.2 light-years, or 25 trillion miles, away from Earth, which is extremely close in cosmic terms.
One astronomer likened it to a flashing neon sign. “I’m the nearest star, and I have a potentially habitable planet!” said R. Paul Butler, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science and a member of the team that made the discovery.
Guillem Anglada-Escudé, an astronomer at Queen Mary University of London and the leader of the team that made the discovery reported in the journal Nature, said, “We know there are terrestrial planets around many stars, and we kind of expected the nearby stars would contain terrestrial planets. This is not exciting because of this. The excitement is because it is the nearest one.”
And the planet’s proximity to Earth gives hope that robotic probes could someday be zooming past the planet for a close-up look. A privately funded team of scientists and technology titans, led by the Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner and the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, have announced Breakthrough Starshot Initiative, a project to develop and launch a fleet of iPhone-size spacecraft within two to three decades. Their proposed destination is the Alpha Centauri star system,[this will be the first attempt to reach Alpha Centauri since the ill-fated Jupiter 2 mission]which includes two larger, sunlike stars in addition to Proxima Centauri
.This newly discovered planet is much closer to its parent star, about five million miles apart, than Earth is to the sun, 93 million miles. Even Mercury, the innermost planet of our solar system, is 36 million miles from the sun.
While Proxima b might be similar to Earth, its parent star, Proxima Centauri, is very different from the sun. It is tiny, belonging to a class of stars known as red dwarfs, with only about 12 percent of the mass of the sun and about 1/600th the luminosity — so dim that it cannot be seen from Earth with the naked eye.
Thus Proxima b, despite its closeness to the star, receives less warmth than Earth, but enough that water could flow on the surface. Whether the planet has liquid water or an atmosphere is “pure speculation at this point,” Dr. Anglada-Escudé said in a news conference.
If the planet formed close to the star, it could be dry and airless, but it might also have formed farther out and migrated inward to its current orbit. It is also possible that the planet formed dry and was later bombarded by comets or ice-rich asteroids.
“There are viable models and stories that lead to a viable Earthlike planet today,” Dr. Anglada-Escudé said.
Scientists - always making up stories with such touching faith they might be true. Bless 'em all
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts
The scientists have a pretty good track record compared to the religious fundamentalists--of *ANY* religion--so, if I were a betting man, that's where I'd put my money. And all their "stories" are of a sort that can, eventually, be checked to see how closely they match reality. (This one shouldn't take more than around a century or so, if the human race lasts that long...)
Also, when the scientific story doesn't match reality (e.g. geocentrism, luminiferous æther, et al.), the scientists stop telling the story.
People who are wrong are just as sure they're right as people who are right. The only difference is, they're wrong.
— God@The Tweet of God
Well, of course the little darlings do. They have a much better record of doing science than religion which... er... doesn't do science (though many religious scientists do). There was a time when some chaps thought a verse in Joshua about the sun standing still meant the earth did not rotate around the sun - but fortunately they've stopped telling that story. Oh.
Now your scientist, he thinks it perfectly rational to dream up an infinite number of multiverses and have absolute faith that such things exist. Not all scientists of course - only the ones who replace observation by faith.
So here we have a blob orbiting a red star, within absolute deadly range of all that red star produces - and it might be warm enough or it might be cold enough that possibly some sort of life may be or have been or may one day be found there if if we one day (at least 50-100 years from now as far as science can tell) find a way to send something or other over there that might detect whatever there is or not as the case may be.
I've no problem with scientists spinning yarns and finding out if they are true - my objection is more to the coo gosh wow media which shills a story like no other. The story on NPR was much better presented.
Wouldn't it be exciting if there was life? Cool! C. S. Lewis addressed that issue some 60 years ago and appears to have concluded (a) that there could be alien forms of life but if it was not sentient then it was rather a moot point in terms of religion/science and (b) he was horrified by the idea that we might contact intelligent life and corrupt it. He doesn't seem to have thought of the reverse - perhaps because he considered that we cannot be more corrupt (spiritually).
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts
MajGenl.Meade wrote:...he was horrified by the idea that we might contact intelligent life and corrupt it. He doesn't seem to have thought of the reverse - perhaps because he considered that we cannot be more corrupt (spiritually).
As someone once said:
The surest sign that there is intelligent life out there is that they have not tried to contact us. I think is was Calvin and Hobbes
