SpaceX
What if we could leave our solar system in search of a new world, either from the need to escape or merely by the pure pursuit of exploration and knowledge if we ever set our sights on the great unknown and found a new solar system? Which star we would choose The simplest answer is usually correct so we go for the nearest one.
Proxima Centauri in the triple stellar solar system of Alpha Centauri and through incredible luck we found that Proxima supports at least one Earth-like planet. Depends on how things go in the future.
This colonization would make Mars sound like a child’s play, but think of the payoff that is setting humanity into an entirely new solar system. It’s too heavy to actually spread the light of consciousness to the stars so today let’s talk about our possible new home on the Alpha Centauri system and Proxima Centauri b t option for our first Earth 2.0 what it’s going to look like.
What will we build there and how do we travel so far, it’s a space race so the first really cool thing about Alpha Centauri is that it’s triple stellar we get three The core of the Sun system is a binary star Alpha Centauri A and B, they both orbit around a center of mass in relatively close proximity, the two stars orbiting each other once every 80 years.
At their closest they are about the same distance between Saturn and us as the Sun and at their farthest they are about the same distance between Pluto and our Proxima, then orbit around the binary star at a greater distance than it is completely It is not clear whether Proxima is actually a permanent member of the system or just a transient third wheel about half of Proxima.
The system’s bonds are one light-year away from the alpha pair and therefore have a fairly weak gravitational bond to the system, Proxima orbiting alpha a and b twice every million years as the pair of stars that make up the binary of our own Alpha Centauri. Very close in size a is about 10 percent larger than the Sun and 50 percent brighter than Alpha Centauri b is 10 percent smaller than our Sun.
Only half as bright makes this binary star one of the brightest dots. The proxima of light in our night sky is a distinct green, this red dwarf is seven times smaller than our Sun and shines about 600 times as dimmer than it really is. that even though Proxima is the closest star to our planet, we cannot see it in the night sky without the aid of a telescope Proxima is about 1.5 times the size of the planet Jupiter.
It is just 4.2 light years away from Earth which is an unfathomably long distance on a human scale but on the scale of the Milky Way we are just next door Now it is important to say again that we will not be going here just for fun, in our own solar system With countless human lives worth exploring, a visit to Proxima Centauri is more than likely done as part of a desperate escape from a catastrophic-ending solar system. Perhaps we may discover that a rogue black hole is directly related to our Sun.
A cosmic pulsar is about to destroy the entire system so we have no choice but to run and Proxima b is where we’ll run. So far we’ve only been able to identify four exoplanets around Proxima, but we Planet B is preferred because it sits in the Goldilocks region, which means we believe the temperature would be just right to allow the existence of liquid water.
The solvent of life is everywhere on Earth that we find liquid water. The location of the Goldilocks Sphere depends greatly on the size and strength of the star the planet is orbiting, because Proxima is not very large or powerful, The Goldilocks zone is just near the star Proxima b is only 7.5 kilometers away from its star, so planet b is eight times closer to Proxima than the planet Mercury.
Which is for our own Sun, so one full rotation around the star a year on Proxima b is only going to be 11 days which is pretty crazy how it works out how the size of Proxima b is about 1.1 times that of Earth Radius and is close to 1.3 times the mass, so it would have more gravity than Earth but not by an insane amount. Proxima b is considered a rocky planet like ours.
Looks a lot like Mars because we think the composition is mostly iron oxide which makes it red, it is also a safer place than Earth because of its red dwarf star Life expectancy for a star like Proxima It is going to be about 4 trillion years before the supernova goes, which is comfortable.
But unfortunately everything isn’t looking so great around Proxima b, we have some very significant downsides, so it’s very likely that Planet B is locked from its star, this is the same effect that Earth’s Moon has on the Moon’s orbit. The motion is proportional to its own rotation so we only ever see one side of it, that’s why they call the other the dark side of the moon.
It’s not really dark that we can’t see. It’s from Earth which means that for Proxima b one side of the planet is constantly facing the star, but the other side is constantly pointed away, so its There would actually be a dark side. That’s not great, but that in itself isn’t a deal breaker. When we bring radiation into the mix because Proxima b is so close to its star, it’s going to hit a lot of solar wind.
The force of the solar wind on Proxima b is going to be much more powerful than what. Earth receives it from our Sun and we don’t think Proxima b has a magnetic field like Earth acts as any kind of protection against that force, so any kind of atmosphere would be blasted away from the rocky planet And that’s on one fine day Proxima b also has to contend with a variable star.
The red dwarf can be quite mellow most of the time but it has a tendency to flare with the extreme violence that we have seen occurs a few times a year from Proxima 1 in brightness for periods of several minutes with the greatest recorded brightness. Looking at the 000-fold increase, imagine that for a second you are on a nice walk on a hot summer’s day and the sun becomes 1000 times brighter as quickly.
We’ll all be baking a massive increase in dead radiation UV and infrared light so that alone will put Proxima b out of the race for a perfect new Earth, make sure it’s warm and well lit on the bright side But you can get destroyed by radiation at any time. The dark side is a bit more attractive then it’s going to take a lot more work to fix it.
it would be safe ok so how do we go about colonizing this rock because if the earth were to be destroyed or crushed into a black hole we need to make it work phase one for a while Going around in orbit We begin by colonizing the space around Proxima b and then simply excursions to the surface for mining and resource extraction.
We will need to start working on the bright side of the planet because we need solar energy to power us but we go underground as soon as we can, mining iron and other metals from the planet’s rocky crust.
And then launch it into our orbital habitat with massive maneuvering systems, these are like giant catapults or railguns that can put things into orbit without any need.