Proxima b’ move-in ready? Closest ever Earth-like planet confirmed by scientists

Speculation is harmless enough I suppose, for those who are interested in such things. My beef is they exploit it relentlessly (ad nauseam, some would say?) purely to perpetuate their jobs for life. I don't even blame them for that, but it's the notion they hold that someone of my intelligence can be persuaded to succumb to their nonsense, plus the condescension in the way they so brazenly promote themselves every given opportunity - and the more they do, the more it irritates me into exposing it.

Here endeth the rant!

 

You're an American - you should say liquid wodda?

 

The only way 'they' can do that is to go there and find out. The trick would be getting back?

 

No we can aim a spectrum telescope at it when it passes in front of its star.

Diffrent elements produce different spectrums.

Light shines through the planets atmosphere. We see the specral lines of this atmosphere.

Like that we can determine the composition of the atmosphere

 

Observing a planet orbiting a star in a region of space where the temperature is just right for water could exist is not speculating.

Its observing

 

That's not quite true - the EU is building a giant telescope down in Chile that should be capable of detecting and analyzing the atmosphere of the planet as it passes in front of the star. I posted a link for it a couple of posts back. They're expecting the imagery from that telescope to be over 15 times clearer than Hubble. It should be up and running in 2024.

 

'We' can do this. 'We' can do that. Who's 'we'? Are you one of them?

 

'cosmology' has become a world-wide industry (I often wonder if it is to take our minds off of certain things, and let's face it, there are plenty of things to take our minds off of?), and all participants are trying to outdo each other for the kudos. It's all a part of the madness.

 

What exactly do you have against advancing scientific knowledge?

 

Nobody is more in favour of advancing scientific knowledge than me; you know, the kind of science that benefits mankind? What I'm not in favour of is the attempt by faux scientists to advance faux science.

 

That's the thing about science... you never know where the next big discovery is going to come from and what the practical benefits of it are going to be.

 

To be honest, I can't think of any practical benefits which might be gained by experimenting whether or not it's possible for mankind to live on a planet known to be hostile to human life, and situated at the outer reaches of the universe? I mean what's the point of the studies and the speculation when the outcome is already known?

 

Well, forgive me for saying so, but I think that's pretty close-minded of you to say. The more we can understand about other planets, the more knowledge we gain about our own. It gives us a baseline for comparison. Take life itself... every living thing that we've ever found so far has been on the Earth. Which is well and good, and we can learn a lot about it.... but think about how much more we can learn about what makes life "tick" if we can find life that originated somewhere else, say, for instance, in the waters under the icy surface of Europa. Would their DNA be the same or different than on Earth? Would they even have DNA?

So what if we get that telescope up and running and we find evidence of significant amounts of oxygen or methane in the atmosphere another planet? Well, as Shelly Ann pointed out earlier, that'd be a pretty strong indicator that life exists there. Think about what a spur to technological advancement it would be if we could find habitable worlds out there in our galactic neighborhood. When we're faced with that prospect, I imagine it'd won't be too long before we look around at all of the trillions of dollars we invest to defend little patches of dirt on this rock and start realizing how foolish we've been. What if we started pumping them instead into finding and building the technologies to get us out there and exploring where we're destined to be?

Once we start going down that road, then we're on track for the future..... if we start turning inwards and only caring about improving our lives here on Earth, then eventually it's going to catch up with us. Either we'll end up destroying ourselves or someone else in the galaxy will come along and do it for us. Stagnation will lead you to ruination every damn time. The sooner we spur ourselves to get our act together and get out there and start exploring, the better off we'll be in the long run.

Like the old Russian rocket pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky used to say, "The Earth is the cradle on mankind, but one cannot live in a cradle forever."

 

Good to be able to discuss with such mutual respect. I'd say I'm sceptical rather than 'close-minded' - I have no time for those who are close-minded because it's a form of arrogance.

I don't believe that atmosphere can be determined visually (especially when the object being studied is squillions of miles away, as is Mars?); rather it has to be determined by (I guess) chemical analysis.

And Confucius he say 'The glass isn't necessaliry gleener (well he was Chinese!) on the other side.'

 

Humans. Yes. Im one of them

 

I figure it's not much use coming in here unless we're able to have discussions based on mutual respect.... anything else is just so much playground crap.

Whether you believe it or not, it is possible to do.... as the planet passes in front of the star it gets back-lighted and you can tell a lot from light. It's the same reason why King George III sent Captain Cook to the other side of the world in 1769 - to study Venus as it transited the Sun and learn what they could from it. (Unforeseen practical side-benefit - Australia!)

Of course, studying the light that gets bounced off the atmosphere in the fraction of a microsecond where only the atmosphere is back-lighted has got to be like measuring the width of an onion peel passed in front of a spotlight ten miles away....it's possible so long as you know where and when to look and you've got one kick-ass telescope.

 

Are there any other planets that are good prospects for life?

 

The next closest star that might have good prospects is probably Tau Ceti, which is about 11.9 light years away. Tau Ceti e is slightly close to the star to be in the habitable zone (Hz) and Tau Ceti f is slightly outside of it.... but some climate models put Tau Ceti e within the Hz. It receives 1.71 times as much heat as the Earth (compared to Venus's 1.91) - so it's probably too hot for us, but it could be possible with a thinner atmosphere.

We've found lots of gas giants in our stellar neighborhood so far that are within the Hz - they could have habitable moons. It's still early in the game as far as actually finding a lot of planets, though - I imagine if we were looking at the Solar System from 500 light years away, we might have found Jupiter but it's pretty unlikely we would have found Earth with the equivalent technology we have today.

 

Billions of them.

 

Heh.....so you are not closed minded until something comes about you close your mind to?

 

So why doesn't NASA choose one then, rather than waste time and money obsessing about one already known to not have such prospects? Good question, no?

 

Are there any satellites going up that will be looking for signs of intelligent habitation, either those that it finds itself and/or directed searches of likely subjects found elsewhere?

 

Even the most unlikely prospect may have moons, also that's not the only thing they're looking for. They've already rewritten the book on solar system formation and that's worth a lot in this area.

Space science isn't cheap but most projects still cost less than a lazy afternoon in Baghdad, and many have truly far reaching consequences even on immediate earthy concerns.

 

Obviously your understanding of astrophysics, engineering, cosmology, financial dynamics, Government organizations, Technology, scientific instrumentation, the discovery process, and basic physical reality are limited. I am not sure which "one already known to not have such prospects" you refer to but it seems you also lack the imagination required to consider the steps needed before any possible colonization could be considered.
IF you are referring to Mars for instance, A complete lack of existing life must be absolutely verified and resources found to provide on planet abilities before technology can even be developed to use them. Intricate and complex details must be considered by thousands of professionals, testing and evaluation done to the extreme, contingencies developed for the unforeseen and inevitable risks to human crew, Life support systems created in triplicate and redundancy......as well as too many other things to list here which is still just the big things an internet forum member can think of.

Your question is like asking Einstein why Apple decided to name some fake woman SIRI.

 

What would you even look for? I keep thinking what it'd be like to look at Earth from a couple of hundred light years away.... even if you could find it and get a spectroscopic analysis of it's atmosphere as it transited the Sun, what red flag would there be to show that there was intelligent life? Carbon monoxide? Mars has way more Carbon Monoxide in it's atmosphere than Earth does. Carbon Dioxide? Same - even more so. Truth be told, despite all of the climate change propaganda we get exposed to, our effect on the atmosphere is minimal. Geology will always be far more influential than biology as far as atmospheric emissions are concerned.