There is a "Highly Habitable" Planet Just 4 light years from Us, Astronomers Say

The Space Academy ^ | June 11, 2023

[McGruff]

A nearby exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of a star just 4.2 light-years from Earth may be home to a vast ocean, boosting its chances of supporting life. Since its discovery, questions about the conditions at the surface of Proxima b have been swirling; the planet’s mass is just about 1.3 times that of Earth’s, and the red dwarf star it circles is similar in age to our sun.

Studies over the last few years, however, have both bolstered hopes of its habitability and shot them down. Now, a new study has once again raised the possibility that Proxima b could support life, suggesting that under the right conditions, the exoplanet could sustain liquid water.

“The major message from our simulations is that there’s a decent chance that the planet would be habitable,” Anthony Del Genio, a planetary scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told LiveScience.

Since its discovery, questions about the conditions at the surface of Proxima b have been swirling; the planet's mass is just about 1.3 times that of Earth's, and the red dwarf star it circles is similar in age to our sun. Artist's impression

In the study published this month in the journal Astrobiology, the researchers ran what are said to be the first climate simulations of Proxima b with a dynamic ocean. The planet is thought to be tidally locked with its star, Proxima Cent

[ShadowAce]

Voyager I has been moving away for 45 years and is just over 18 light-minutes distant. or about 1/1600th of the distance to Proxima.
Going to need something faster than chemical rockets.

Voyager I does not have chemical rockets as a means of propulsion. Those are only for adjustments and positioning.

Voyager I has been using gravity wells of the planets to accelerate outward.

However, you point is well taken--chemical rockets would not last long enough to get to anywhere else. We can't store it on board at launch, and there isn't enough fuel between there and here to harvest.

[null and void]

As per the foreign army, have no idea what scenario you’re thinking of there.

ScenarioS

How soon they forget.

No dramatic images of the Bay of Pigs, but I'm pretty sure that if they had a chance to avoid being at the mercy of Castro and Guevara...

[antidemoncrat]

Hurray. Let’s get up a gofundme page to enable that to happen.

[JimRed]

Send a self-piloting drone ship with a program to explore the entire surface of the planet and send the data back to Earth...

By the time the data arrives back the whole probe program will be long forgotten.

[JimRed]

We can’t even get back to the Moon so far.

No so much "can't" as didn't. We could have.

[from occupied ga]

There is probably life elsewhere in the universe, but it is rendered irrelevant by physics. We can’t get there from here and they can’t hear from there. Consider Newton: E=1/2mv² meaning that to travel say 50% of light speed you have to supply 1/8mC² energy to whatever mass you want to go that fast. Chemical energy tops out at .000057 light speed (voyager I) nuclear power still nowhere near enough. How much uranium mass is actually converted to energy? About .1% of the fuel mass in a reactor is converted to energy. So .1% of the fuel mass is the most you have to accelerate the reactor and the entire rest of the vessel to whatever velocity you can get.

oh wait I know how to solve it!! We can use magic wind and solar and batteries just like magic EVs will use. Unless you lifespan runs in the 100,000s of years interstellar travel remains in the realm of science FICTION.

[from occupied ga]

You’re a little off - it’s 1/116800 of the way.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Ah.

In that case, I don't want to go.