Top 10 List of Habitable Stars to Guide Search

space.com ^ | 02/21/06 | Ker Than

[KevinDavis]

The search for alien life outside our solar system has been made a little less daunting thanks to a new list drawn up by astronomer Margaret Turnbull that includes the known stars most likely to support habitable stellar systems.

Turnbull, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institute of Washington, listed 10 of what she believes are likely to be habitable stellar systems, or “habstars,” capable of supporting Earth-like planets and life. The list was presented at the recent annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in St. Louis.

Five of the stars on the list are thought of as good candidates for SETI astronomers seeking only to listen for radio signals from intelligent alien civilizations. They will be included in a list of targets for the Allen Telescope Array, a network of 42 linked radio dishes that is expected to go online this spring in California.

The other five are for NASA’s Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF), a planned space telescope that would attempt to directly image Earth-like planets around nearby stars. The TPF mission was scheduled for launch around 2016, but is currently on hold indefinitely, according to NASA’s 2007 budget plan.

[Brett66]

Realtivistic effects at 100,000 MPH are basically nil. A probe would need to be traveling about 80% the speed of light before it starts becoming noticeable.

[ccmay]

The Universe is vast. I am pretty sure there is life on other star systems.

I agree.

They likely will resemble life on Earth, not the freakish ones we see in movies.

Rubbish. At best, there will be an endoskeleton and a symmetric distribution of sensory organs and limbs.

The "freakish" aliens you typically see in movies are shocking precisely because they have a vague resemblance to humans. Two eyes above a midline nose, and below the nose a mouth with teeth. Head on top of spine, two arms, two legs, bipedal gait, etc.

Real aliens will look nothing like humans or even necessarily like vertebrates. They may look like an odd sea creature, or they may be something totally new like a Horta.

[ccmay]

If I calculated correctly, that works out to 1141 years for a one way trip....

Interesting. Certainly too far for a manned mission, but quite within the realm of possibility for an unmanned probe.

The pyramids and Great Wall of China took hundreds of years to build. Sending a probe to another star system could be a comparable monument left by our own generation.

-ccm

[mc5cents]

Lets play "Spot The Alien"!

[Ptarmigan]

True. Since you mentioned it, here on Earth, there are freakish life. Ever seen those deep-sea or cave life? Some are really freakish. I wonder if there is a planet inhabited by bunny like races that are war-like? :)