Posted on 01/22/2017 7:56:05 PM PST by MtnClimber
The Wolf 1061 star system is only 14 light-years away and a team of astronomers are doing the groundwork to begin looking for signs of extraterrestrial biology in one of its planet's atmospheres.
As we continue the hunt for habitable worlds beyond our solar system, we're finding more and more candidates closer to home. There's even a small rocky exoplanet within the so-called "habitable zone" at Proxima Centauri, the dinky red dwarf star right next door. But there's more, and astronomers are beginning to identify which of these strange new worlds we could soon get a good look at with the next generation of advanced telescopes on Earth and in space.
One tantalizing potentially habitable exoplanet orbits the star Wolf 1061, only 14 light-years away — a distance that is practically on our galactic doorstep. Known to host three exoplanets, the Wolf 1061 system is interesting as it could be a target for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) that is scheduled to launch in 2018. Sitting at the sun-Earth L2 point — an island of gravitational calm nearly one million miles away in Earth's shadow — the infrared JWST could be used to detect atmospheric components in worlds that could, hypothetically, support life. Other exoplanet-hunting projects are being launched, such as the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), the CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS), and the PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO) mission, that will greatly benefit from this advanced research to characterize the habitable potential of distant worlds.
(Excerpt) Read more at seeker.com ...
186,000 miles/sec x 3600 sec/hour x 24 hours/day x 365 days/year = ??
then x 14 is a one-way trip. Then it has to come back.
14 Light Years * 186,000 Miles/Second * 3600 Seconds/Hour * 24 Hour/Day * 365.25 Day/Year = 82,175,990,400,000 Miles
So, 82.2 Trillion Miles
Even if we could get a probe (or swarm of probes) up to 1/2 the speed of light (a very big if), it would take 28 years to do a fly-by.
Ah well, you know what they say about planting oak trees....
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