Planet in Proxima Centauri's habitable zone

[Tonitrus]

Ed's plan:

Send Tim.
Blow up spaceship halfway there.

Better yet blow up the "spaceship" still on Earth. Much cheaper.

Let him get one last thrill. I'm a nice guy.

That's not what Hitler would do. 

[Ed Anger]

Ed's plan:

Send Tim.
Blow up spaceship halfway there.

Better yet blow up the "spaceship" still on Earth. Much cheaper.

Let him get one last thrill. I'm a nice guy.

That's not what Hitler would do. 

Jews got a Train ride. Tim gets a rocket ride.

[Martinus]

Ed's plan:

Send Tim.
Blow up spaceship halfway there.

Better yet blow up the "spaceship" still on Earth. Much cheaper.

Let him get one last thrill. I'm a nice guy.

That's not what Hitler would do. 

WWHD?

[jimmy olsen]

The James Webb Space Telescope will definitely be able to discover whether or not this planet is habitable.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1608.07345

The newly detected Earth-mass planet in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri could potentially host life - if it has an atmosphere that supports surface liquid water. We show that thermal phase curve observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) from 5-12 microns can be used to test the existence of such an atmosphere. We predict the thermal variation for a bare rock versus a planet with 35% heat redistribution to the nightside and show that a JWST phase curve measurement can distinguish between these cases at 5σ  confidence. We also consider the case of an Earth-like atmosphere, and find that the ozone 9.8 micron band could be detected with longer integration times (a few months). We conclude that JWST observations have the potential to put the first constraints on the possibility of life around the nearest star to the Solar System.

[jimmy olsen]

It's dead Jim!

https://www.forbes.com/sites/billretherford/2018/02/26/gigantic-stellar-flare-slams-earths-closest-exoplanet/#30e1cfde6ab7

Gigantic Stellar Flare Slams Earth's Closest Exoplanet

Bill Retherford , CONTRIBUTOR

There's breaking news from Proxima b.

And for those hoping the exoplanet harbored life—it's just heartbreaking.

Astronomers today announced the discovery of a colossal stellar flare that erupted from the planet's host star, Proxima Centauri.

The flare, extraordinarily powerful, "likely blasted" the world with "high energy radiation," says Meredith MacGregor of the Carnegie Institution for Science.

And almost certainly not for the first time: similar flares, the scientists suggest, have probably bombarded Proxima b for possibly billions of years.

"That's a pretty safe conclusion," MacGregor says. "We observed for only ten hours and caught this one. So you can extrapolate—and imagine these flares might be relatively common."

If so, Proxima b could be a dead world.

The flare occurred almost one year ago, in March 2017. It lasted two minutes. At its peak, Proxima Centauri's brightness increased by 1,000 times.

Flares of such magnitude might eventually obliterate a planetary atmosphere, sterilizing the landscape; with no atmosphere, liquid surface water can't exist.

"This certainly raises questions about possible habitability," MacGregor says.

Yet the detection doesn't completely rule out extraterrestrial life on the planet: "There are a lot of factors we still don't understand. I hesitate to immediately squash it (the possibility of life)."

MacGregor's team analyzed data from Chile's ALMA Observatory. Those findings, just published, appear in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Proxima b—a rocky world about the size of Earth, and inside the habitable zone—is our nearest exoplanet, about twenty five trillion miles away. In space, that's close.

Since its August 2016 discovery, the planet was believed a possible place for life; perhaps even an archetype for other small, temperate worlds closely orbiting a red dwarf star. The galaxy has tens of billions of them.

If Proxima b is indeed a template for those planets—then stellar flares might routinely wipe out their atmospheres too. And the number of potentially habitable planets in the Milky Way would significantly decline.

Says MacGregor: "Seeing results like this prompts us to learn more about exactly what's going on in these stars."

[Eddie Teach]

You didn't really think we'd find a suitable planet the first place we looked?

[The Brain]

The flare occurred almost one year ago, in March 2017.

Did they pick it up on those secret FTL sensors?

[Caliga]

 

[The Minsky Moment]

It's a world full of preppers in tents going on about EMP effects.

[Grinning_Colossus]

Well it certainly destroyed all the orbital power transmitters.

[Ed Anger]

It's a world full of preppers in tents going on about EMP effects.

I'm prepared for the poles to shift!

[Jacob]

It's a world full of preppers in tents going on about EMP effects.

I'm prepared for the poles to shift!

Shifty Poles?

[KRonn]

It's dead Jim!

https://www.forbes.com/sites/billretherford/2018/02/26/gigantic-stellar-flare-slams-earths-closest-exoplanet/#30e1cfde6ab7

Gigantic Stellar Flare Slams Earth's Closest Exoplanet

Ah, too bad. I'll have to cancel my vacation plans for there. It was pretty exciting before this happened though, and certainly there are other planets out there with life and habitable to humans hopefully close enough for astronomers to find sooner than later. Not that we can go there anytime soon but it adds interest and excitement.

[Ed Anger]

It's a world full of preppers in tents going on about EMP effects.

I'm prepared for the poles to shift!

Shifty Poles?

If you can find it, watch some episodes of Doomsday Preppers. The pandemic and economic collapse scenarios I can understand, but the folks preparing for a pole shift were nuttier than squirrel shit.

[Habbaku]

It's a world full of preppers in tents going on about EMP effects.

I'm prepared for the poles to shift!

https://undark.org/article/books-alanna-mitchell-spinning-magnet/