It’s out there and we should plan to go

Pic: an artist’s impression of the exoplanet Proxima Centauri b – attribution here

The existence of a planet the size of Earth around the closest star to the Sun, Proxima Centauri, has been confirmed by an international team of scientists including researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE). The results, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, reveal that the planet in question, Proxima b, has a mass of 1.17 Earth masses and is located in the habitable zone of its star, which it orbits in 11.2 days.

From Wikipedia:

Proxima Centauri b (also called Proxima b or Alpha Centauri Cb) is an exoplanet orbiting in the habitable zone of the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, which is the closest star to the Sun and part of a triple star system. It is located approximately 4.2 light-years (1.3 parsecs, 40 trillion km, 25 trillion miles, or 265,000 AU) from Earth in the constellation of Centaurus, making it the closest known exoplanet to the Solar System.

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This is exciting because it brings a planet we *might* be able to live on into the reach of medium term future tech.

What would we need to do to get there?

1) Build a power supply that could accelerate and decelerate a mass sufficient to propel itself, a team of astronauts, supplies and a habitat capable of sustaining them at a steady 1g for roughly 5 years there and 5 years back.

2) Provide sufficient shielding to the habitat to prevent catastrophic impacts and radiation.

3) A team of astronauts that would not only be away for ten years, but would suffer huge time dilation effects as they reach near relativistic speeds.

All this is way beyond our current technology and spending power, but who knows what the future holds, other than the laws of physics?

The full, original story can be found here