By directly imaging another planet in
the closest star system to our own, Project Blue could gather vital data that would indicate if any planets there are habitable.
The privately - led mission aims to build a space telescope the size of a washing machine and point it at Alpha Centauri,
the closest star system to Earth, in the hope of glimpsing a rocky world or two where life may have gained a foothold.
Theoretical physicist and artificial intelligence forewarner Stephen Hawking has a plan to get us to the Alpha Centauri system,
the closest star system outside of our own.
Last week, astronomers discovered a potentially Earth - like planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf in
our closest star system...
Alpha Centauri (α Centauri, abbreviated Alf Cen, α Cen) is
the closest star system to the Solar System, being 4.37 light - years (1.34 pc) from the Sun.
It would take around 30,000 years for us to reach
our closest star system, but If the latest idea from the cosmically inquisitive Stephen Hawking comes to fruition, we could reach this neighboring stellar system within 20 years of launch.
Of the 10
closest star systems to Earth, only one does not contain a low - mass star (the Sirius system consists of a blue giant and an ultra-compact white dwarf, the remnant of a Sun - like star).
Located in one of
the closest star systems to our own at just 4.2 lightyears away, the exoplanet Proxima b seemed like a great...
I would love to see this technique (mentioned by Oppenheimer in the interview) applied to some of
the closer star systems.
Not exact matches
An enduring puzzle about exoplanets, Phys.org writes, is why they are often much
closer to their
stars than the planets in our own solar
system.
«They are very
close to their
star and are reminiscent of the
system of moons that orbit Jupiter.
If there were a larger
star roaming around
close to our solar
system, the Sun and inevitably every planet, moon, dwarf planet and space rock would be pulled towards that instead... Simply, really... «LOL!!»
Environmentally friendly in their production, the Easy Fit
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This chemical - free sterilising
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Closer to Nature Complete Feeding Set.
As Paris designer Nathalie Garcon says of lending her jackets to female politicians: «We are
close to the
system which prevails at the Cannes Film Festival with the
stars.»
Justin R. Crepp, Freimann Assistant Professor of Physics, was part of the team that discovered KELT - 4Ab, a so - called «hot Jupiter» because it is a gas giant that orbits extremely
close to one of the
stars in its solar
system.
Would the sun and its fragile solar
system survive an urban upbringing in
close proximity with thousands more
stars after all?
The lead author of the new study, Guillem Anglada [1], from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (CSIC), Granada, Spain, explains the significance of this find: «The dust around Proxima is important because, following the discovery of the terrestrial planet Proxima b, it's the first indication of the presence of an elaborate planetary
system, and not just a single planet, around the
star closest to our Sun.»
This artist's impression shows how the newly discovered belts of dust around the
closest star to the Solar
System, Proxima Centauri, may look.
The ALMA Observatory in Chile has detected dust around the
closest star to the Solar
System, Proxima Centauri.
Planets that were rocky from the start should be smaller
close to the
stars, where studies of other young
star systems suggest there should have been less material available when these planets were forming.
Several other super-Earths have been identified in
systems much like our solar
system, with small planets
closer to the
star and giants in the outer orbits.
You'll also get a
close - up glimpse at an ambitious and innovative project to send nanospacecraft Alpha Centauri, our
closest neighboring
star system.
If the orbits of these bodies are disturbed — by a passing
star, for example — they return to paths
close to the planets of the solar
system and can become active comets.
For years, astronomers expected to see elsewhere what they saw in our own orderly solar
system: rocky planets
close to a
star and gas giants farther away, all in neat, nearly circular orbits.
Close encounter Tracing the trajectory of the
star and its brown dwarf companion back in time, Mamajek's team found with 98 % confidence that Scholz's
star passed within the Solar
System's Oort cloud, a reservoir of comets, about 70,000 years ago.
«The discovery is surprising,» adds astrophysicist Scott Tremaine at Princeton University in New Jersey, because
stars are expected to come
close to the outer Solar
System only about once every 9 million years, yet this encounter occurred recently.
And there are certainly alien
star systems that are
closer to us than that.
The findings could also prove useful in optical
systems, such as microscopes and telescopes, for viewing faint objects that are
close to brighter objects — for example, a faint planet next to a bright
star.
Unlike our solar
system, the planetary types alternate: A gas giant is
closest to the
star, then a rocky planet, then gas, rocky, and gas.
The planets are bunched in
close to their
star, making it a miniature version of our solar
system — and one that's much, much older.
These are large gas giants that look a little like the planet Jupiter in our solar
system, although they are much hotter as they circle their
star in a very tight orbit: about a hundred times
closer than our Jupiter is to the sun.
A chance to get a
close look is coming soon: Kervella's team mapped out the
system's trajectory and found that in a decade, Alpha Centauri A will pass in front of a more distant
star and act as a gravitational lens, distorting the light of the
star behind it.
The
star system closest to our sun has a planet — Proxima b — similar to Earth's mass.
This scenario naturally produces a planetary
system just like our own: small, rocky planets with thin atmospheres
close to the
star, a Jupiter - like gas giant just beyond the snowline, and the other giants getting progressively smaller at greater distances because they move more slowly through their orbits and take longer to hoover up material.
The heat - formed crystalline grains found in icy comets imply significant mixing and outward movement of matter from
close to the
star to the outer edges of the solar
system.
But these planets are crowded much
closer to their
stars than the worlds in our solar
system, adding a wrinkle to our theories of how planets form and evolve.
Worlds in the Alpha Centauri
system — the trio of
stars closest to our sun — have been a staple of science fiction for decades.
Many of the newfound worlds follow highly elliptical paths that take them
close to and then far away from their
star, quite unlike the nearly circular orbits typical in our solar
system.
While past studies have looked for planets very
close to, and very far away from,
stars to determine where planets are typically located in
star systems, the HOSTS Survey is determining how dust and asteroid belts appear in the average
star system.
The exoplanet (a planet in another solar
system) is about six times the mass of Jupiter and orbits about 40 percent
closer to its
star, dubbed HD 102272, than Earth does around the sun.
The new planet haul is the biggest yet, bringing the number of confirmed worlds outside our solar
system over 3200 - and edges us
closer to knowing how many
stars host other Earths
Narayan and his colleagues Jeffrey McClintock and Michael Garcia decided to take a
close look at a number of
star systems that were likely hosts to black holes.
Our solar
system may have started out with several planets packed
closer to the sun than Mercury, much like the planets we see around other
stars
Working with UW astronomer Eric Agol, doctoral student Ethan Kruse has confirmed the first «self - lensing» binary
star system — one in which the mass of the
closer star can be measured by how powerfully it magnifies light from its more distant companion
star.
Joseph Taylor and Russell Hulse analyzed two neutron
stars orbiting around each other and found they were getting
closer — that is, the
system was losing energy, by precisely the amount it would lose if the neutron
stars were emitting gravitational waves.
If a few key characteristics such as an exoplanet's topography and rotation rate are just right, then the inner edge of the habitable zone — the region in a solar
system where conditions conducive to life can arise — will be
closer to the host
star than is usually thought.
The planet is in a binary
star system, so it might also be the case that the second
star in the binary made a
close approach that threw HD 20782 off a more circular orbit.
Both are likely too
close to their
star to host life, but the discovery opens the possibility of other planets in the
system with more temperate climates.
Such a process is known to occur in planetary
systems when
close encounters can cast a planet into deep space, and within galaxies when a
star can get ejected, but these lonely compact galaxies are the result of slingshots on a supergalactic scale.