We are in a period of great astronomical revolutions, with amazing discoveries that follow and new technologies for the developing space travel.
A few days ago, a team from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) announced the discovery of a new exoplanet in the habitable area around Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf star in the star system closest to us, Alpha Centauri.
The news is amazing because it means that a planet similar to Earth is only 4.2 light years from us, and could contain liquid water, possess an atmosphere, and live life.
"Many exoplanets have been discovered, and many will be discovered in the future, but the discovery of the Earth-like planet closest to our solar system has been the greatest experience of our lives," said Guillem Anglada-Escudé, team member and researcher Of Queen Mary University in London.
The team was able to locate the planet (named Proxima b) by observing Proxima Centauri in the first half of 2016, and comparing data with previous observations over the past 16 years, collected by telescopes around the world.
What we know about the planet is that it is 1.3 times the Earth, and it is almost certainly rocky. Orbit about 7 million km away from its star, and it takes 11 days to complete its orbit.
The average temperature on its surface is -40 degrees Celsius, and there is the possibility of having an atmosphere and liquid water on the surface.
We would need further observations to confirm these data, but the good news is that Proxima b is so close to Earth that it could be reached by probes in the next 50 years of spatial exploration.
In particular, the Starshot project led by Stephen Hawking, Mark Zuckerberg, and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner intends to send foxes of the size of a stamp to Alpha Centauri using a laser-controlled laser propulsion system.
In practice, the microspheres will be accelerated to 20% of the speed of light by 100 billion watts of laser beams fired from the earth's surface or from orbiting stations (to eliminate atmospheric absorption).
So what to say ... we hope to live enough to be able to see all this
Proxima b : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centauri_b
