Comments on: The search for exoplanets at Alpha Centauri https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/the-search-for-exoplanets-at-alpha-centauri/ Fri, 13 Apr 2018 01:55:15 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Localfluff https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/the-search-for-exoplanets-at-alpha-centauri/#comment-1047765 Fri, 13 Apr 2018 01:55:15 +0000 http://behindtheblack.com/?p=51156#comment-1047765 Even our nearest star is so dim that it cannot be seen with the naked eye. No telescope can resolve its surface, it’s just a dot, a pixel. It’s only slightly larger than Jupiter in volume, but much heavier. About 70% of stars are red dwarfs like this, and they are lethally active. While Solar radiation is what feeds all of life on earth, the hard UV radiation from red dwarfs seems difficult to deal with. All molecules is machine gunned by the radiation. Lots of energy for sure, but how to make use of it? Given the practically infinite combinatorics of biochemistry, which includes human engineering, I suppose that it is possible. And once a working patent is found, it will spread everywhere.

A Jupiter would’ve had potentially habitable icy moons, with oceans protected from the stellar flares, and at any distance from the star since the energy would be tidal instead of stellar. But our neighbor dwarf star doesn’t have such, too bad.

We’re really lucky with our neighborhood anyway. Red dwarfs are so common and here we have one next doors 4.3 ly away. Its distant companions are two quite Sun like stars. Sirius b is a white dwarf, a very exotic kind of materia orbiting an especially hot and large star 6 ly away. And the nearest known brown dwarf is at the same distance. It’s like a museum, all the most exotic, but yet harmless, objects are nearby. The first interstellar space probes have good targets.

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