5 ms·
What would the "right" target be?
by BrandonMarc 12y ago
What would the "right" target be?
- dredmorbius 12y agoStross answers that. My response is "under your feet".
- afafsd 12y agoStross says Gliese 581c on the grounds that it's the closest currently known vaguely-habitable exoplanet. Most likely there are others closer and we haven't found them yet. Probably not Alpha Centauri since it's a binary system.
- dredmorbius 12y agoA habitable plainet would require a vaguely Sun-like star. Odds of one hiding between us and a. Centauri are low. Gleise or a neighbor are best bets, and near exoolanets are also generally easier to spot.
- afafsd 12y agoNot one hiding between us and Alpha Centauri (which is unlikely), but one of the hundred or so stars between us and Gliese 581. Closer exoplanets aren't necessarily easier to spot, we've spotted those around Gliese 581 because they have a nice short period of a few days.
- dredmorbius 12y agoEase of finding an exoplanet, among other things, increases with proximity. A close and attentive reader of my original comment might possibly note that my argument wasn't for Gliese but against a. centauri. The salient point being that you'll need to schedule and budget for markedly more than 4.6 light years.
- BrandonMarc 12y agoYes, I've thought that, too. Just give up on manned interstellar travel, and redefine the Earth as your spaceship. It may be the only answer, but it's a bit sad all the same.
- S4M 12y agoI think Earth has to be closed enough from the Sun to get heath, otherwise the whole mankind will die from cold.
- BrandonMarc 12y agoI didn't mean take the earth and move it, i meant just call the earths natural motion your "exploration", i.e. give up on manned interstellar travel.
- hrvbr 12y agoAlpha Centauri is actually the right target for our first interstellar probe since it's the closest system. There's just no inhabitable planet there, as far as we know.