Have you always been wondering about the closest star to our solar system, Proxima Centauri? We might answer some of your questions here, including limitations and accommodations for spacecraft to be able to be sent to Proxima Centauri.
The star Proxima Centauri was discovered in 1915 by the Scottish born astronomer Robert Innes. It is part of a star system called the Alpha Centauri star system. It contains 2 other stars known as Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B. Proxima Centauri is also known as Alpha Centauri C. Proxima Centauri is extremely distant from its two companions, orbiting them at a distance of around 1.2 trillion miles (1.9 trillion km).
Proxima Centauri was discovered at Union Observatory in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Robert Innes announced the discovery of what we now know as the next-nearest star to our sun. Innes suspected that Alpha Centauri might have a companion. While comparing photographic plates that were taken five years apart, Innes observed that a certain faint star had moved. He found that this movement was about the same as that of Alpha Centauri.
Over the years, scientists have found out that Proxima Centauri is 4.2 light-years from Earth, a distance that would take about 6,300 years to travel using current technology. Such a trip would take many generations. Most of the humans involved would never see Earth or its exoplanet counterpart. These humans would need to reproduce with each other throughout the journey in a way that guarantees arrival of a healthy crew at Proxima Centauri. A more reliable method would be to put the spacecrafts in orbit around the star or its planet. In a new study, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research have a plan to achieve that. Their researchers’ calculations suggest that, with sufficient modifications to a nanocraft, the probe could harness light and gravity from Proxima Centauri and Alpha Centauri to slow down and then fall in orbit around one of the stars. The first attempt to reach the star will likely be from billionaire Yuri Milner. In 2016, the Russian entrepreneur, investor, and physicist launched the $100-million “Breakthrough Starshot” project, which plans to send tiny spacecrafts, called “nanocrafts,” to Proxima Centauri and its neighboring star Alpha Centauri.
Some technologies that people have used are Kepler, but that was for discovering exoplanets. Drebra Fischer, Jon Morse, and Bill Boruki say they plan to start a new project called Project Blue, in which they plan to build it, as small as a washing machine and then taking pictures observing at wavelengths judging whether it has a blue hue or not. They say once they have a picture, they can figure out whether it’s a rocky world, they’ll be able to see the atmospheres, the planets might have water, they might have life. That’s the next big step they say, to continue what Kepler started.
Spacecraft has never reached this star, in which I believe that the trip is still being planned out. People have been working on it, though. There are many possible ideas. Technology doesn’t have to be new to be useful. Indeed, the very first technology to let us explore other continents on Earth will also be the technology to let us explore our nearest star. Sails, which our ancestors used to capture the force of wind to power boats, will now harness the force of light to power spacecrafts, in which they shall be called “nanocrafts.”
There’s just one problem. If these nanocrafts reach such speeds, we still don’t have a way of slowing them down. So when they reach Proxima Centauri, some 20 years after the launch from Earth, they will cross the star system in mere hours. In such a short period, they may be able to send back some valuable data about the star system and its planets, but nobody knows if it will be enough to help us create, say, a human mission to the star system. If we ever want to travel at truly relativistic speeds to reach the nearest stars, spacecraft will have to endure far more — and the planet discovered around Proxima Centauri makes the prospect of interstellar travel awfully tempting.
Space scientists and engineers have studied various ways of reaching nearby stars. The problem, of course, is the vast distances involved and the comparatively sedate speeds that human spacecraft can manage. Apollo 11 traveled at around 40,000 kilometers per hour, a speed that would take it to Proxima Centauri in over 100,000 years, but spacecraft has since become faster.
Observations made with a telescope in Chile have revealed a planet about as massive as Earth that orbits Proxima Centauri, which is just 4.24 light-years away. And if conditions are right, the planet is in an orbit that’s warm enough for liquid water to survive on its surface.
Put your mind into a thinking machine! What kinds of ideas can you produce for a model to be sent out into space? Did you learn anything new? Now you know more about Proxima Centauri, and its planet, Proxima b.
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