Planet Found in Habitable Zone Around Nearest Star

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Remember, Venus is a terrestrial-size planet.

[Anomalocaris]

If this planet is truly aroun 1-2 earth mass, It would also be interesting to know whether this planet is truly a terrestrial planet, or an unusually small version of Neptune, or the stripped core of a gas or ice giant that migrated inwards very early in the life of the star system, or something else yet again.

But the inclination of the orbit of this planet to our line of sight is unknown.  1.3 earth mass is the lowest mass and inclination that can fit the data given inclination is unknow.  The mean expected mass would be around 2 earth masses given random orbital inclination.    It could well be much more massive still if the orbital inclination is closer to perpendicular than parallel to our line of sight.

The most common mass amongst exoplanets thus far identified is intermediate between earth and Neptune.  So this planet might well be one of those.

[Anomalocaris]

The other thing to keep in mind is although Proxima Centauri, and presumably this planet, is approximately the same age as earth's sun, Proxima Centauri's expected life on the main sequence is 3 trillion years, while the sun has only about 5 billion years go. The total time this planet will spend inside the habitable zone is approximately 400 times longer than the entire expected life of our solar system. So there may well be possibilities for what can happen on this planet over its enormously long expected life that we have not even begun to consider.

[LastPoet]

We can always go there and fire up some plants working alot of CO2. Or we could plant weed there and make it free to smoke. It will all feel so great then.

I'm sure I wouldn't mind the latter.

P.S. I hope Mom and baby are doing well, and you too.

Mom's recovery is doing well. The baby does what babies do: sleep, milk from mommy and poops ALOT. Dad is in a constant state of worry. Not a terminal state. She sneezed yesterday and dad was

[Alex K]

OMG she sneezed!!!
The important question is: what color is the poop, orrange or greenish blackish?

[Fake Messiah]

Aren't you just impatient until your baby is old enough so that you can watch "Lawrence Of Arabia" for the 1st time?

Come on you people you all know real life around Alpha Centauri is around gas giant where there's a moon where blue skinned intelligent tall beings that have face like cats live.

Apparently some billionare Russian is putting in a fuckload of cash to invent a postage stamp size spaceship that will travel there on a laser beam and would only take twenty years.

It may be possible to thrust nanosatelite with mass between 1 and 10 kilograms with lasers but not by pushing them with photons but evaporating sails which generates a vapor or plasma jet which is about a thousand times greater than that gained from photon propulsion. This concept could use lasers that are currently produced, which have an optical power of between a few watts to several kilowatts, rather than the several gigawatts that a photon propulsion system would need.
And if people did have powerful laser they could I guess also be used to be focused onto a boiler full of propellant on-board some spacecraft. As the propellant expands, it would escape through a nozzle and provide the propulsion. In that way you could have much bigger spaceship.

But then we could always use atom bombs. Gather something like 600 atom bombs and let them blast really huge spacecraft with fancy equipment to the nearest star in just few decades (something like 10 years per light-year).

[Alex K]

If the propellant comes from/off the ship itself, one is always limited by the rocket equation with its quickly diminishing returns, unlike the purely laser propulsed device.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Assuming we had the technology to get there (we don't) and could afford to build it (we can't), I still wouldn't live on this planet. An 11 day year? Fuck that, I'm dizzy enough.

Boru

[Crossless2.0]

Assuming we had the technology to get there (we don't) and could afford to build it (we can't), I still wouldn't live on this planet.  An 11 day year?  Fuck that, I'm dizzy enough.

Boru

At my age, there would quickly come a point at which I would not be able to recover from such frequent New Year celebrations.

[The Grand Nudger]

Laser propulsion is also subject to the rocket equations diminishing returns in the case of local power generation, and external source devices are limited by their proximity to source which..in case of solar devices, decreases as their velocity and therefore distance form the source increases regardless of their potential dv and in the context of their dismally low impulse values...just another way that precisely the same sort of diminishing relationship presents itself.  

Forget all that, though, how do we effect an accurate mid course correction in a timely manner over such vast distances - remotely?  That has to be step one, because it doesn't matter whether or not we can build the engine or the payload if we can't hit the target. If we could solve that, though...we wouldn't wonder how to build the engine.

Godammit..I'm never going to get to see any fucking aliens!

(our first truly interstellar vehicle is likely going to be a hybrid craft with high dv low impulse "x" to bridge the distance between stars, high impulse low dv chemical for manouvering in the well and when it matters, and clever use of the wells of all involved bodies in addition to onboard ai/computing for the course corrections... no one system or strategy without the others is going to be capable of solving the different navigational problems presented by long distance space travel.)