PROXIMA CENTAURI

I read this interesting article regarding the amount of x-rays hitting a planet they know orbits Proxima Centauri and how they state that it's unlikely, might have said impossible, for life to form there.

Luckily for Proxima Centauri we also have two other stars which may also be hosts to planets actually in the same system?! Tatooine anyone? Lol. Imagine how cool this would like .. with a speeder and a light saber and a ray-gun? "Blast 'em!" Pew-pew-pew! These other stars are called Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B. Very almost original! Lol.

They like to look at this one most likely because it is the closest to us, which is a bit weird. This is weird because if there was ever an dramatic increase in the drives and fuel of drives to power spacecraft to bring the time down to something far more .. reachable then adding a bit of time to get to the next nearest two or years would not be much of a stretch. 

There is also the possibility that we may have to look very much further afield. Maybe in star systems further away by a factor of ten or more? Maybe thousands and even millions?

Then you have two world to look for .. one that could play host to life forms from Earth and ones that already home to intelligent life and there is a gargantuan gap between the two, of this I have no doubts at all.

Two things popped into my head upon reading this. How do you know life cannot exist on Proxima Centauri B? A planet roughly the size of Earth that exists within the habitable zone. Well .. I think they might need to rework that habitable zone to Possible Habitable Zone, lol, in cases where the radiation given off is off the scale. In this case that is x-rays.

Wait, what? 'Proxima Centauri B'? So does that mean there could be an 'Alpha Centauri A .. A? Or perhaps an Alpha Centauri B .. B? Maybe they should have used Greek letters for the exoplanets? Until they come up with names?

Or perhaps name the planets, that would be fun, with the names we already have regardless of their size?

Proxima Centauri Mercury, Venus Earth and so on and so forth?

Or use the names of another series of deities? We use Roman Gods so maybe Greek Gods for exoplanets? Proxima Centauri Apollo? That would be cool!

Now it could be that with 500 times the amount of x-rays rays that got Earth they penetrate right through the planet?

But if they do not, which is entirely possible, then what if life forms a more subterranean existence on planets like this?

I also remembered a few things I had thought previously regarding the methods used for detecting planets.

The first one is the angle of the orbits and how this might affect the wobble of the host star.

The second one is .. how in the world do you measure a wobble when your dealing with multiple planets?

Yes there may be the slight variations that can be calculated.

But this is a relatively new technique .. surely there must be a limit that is detectable?

For an example ..

They have found these super Jupiters orbiting close to a star .. and they will have an immense gravitational tug on the host star.

But what if you have a rocky planet the size of Earth at the distance of, say, Mars?

I would guess that any tugging ability would be greatly reduced .. even more so if the star had a greater mass then our sun?

So you have a greater mass star with a super Jupiter in close orbit. There must be both a mass and distance ratio where any gravitational tugging because almost impossible to detect and even no existent?

I simply cannot see them being able to detect something the size of Mars with a distance of say somewhere between Jupiter and Neptune. Maybe even something bigger than Mars and closer than Jupiter?

Or to put it another way I would be staggered if they found something the size of Pluto at the distance of Pluto. Exo-KPOs (Kuiper Belt Objects). Both if and when we find them I would be very interested to know how they achieved that.

So for me ever since they started increasing their database for exoplanets I knew that the number for each star is likely to be far higher than we currently know.

Whenever several planets were detected around a star at once, as happened only recently, I would think "WHAT?!" and then wonder just how many planets will exist in that particular star system?

I often think how exciting it would be if found systems with over a dozen planets? Of it were possible, of course. But then lots of things scientists generally agreed we impossible are shattered every few years. Though I am referring to astronomy here this even occurs due prehistoric animals here on Earth.

A top speed fit the Tyrannosaurus Rex at 65mph anyone? What do you mean it's legs broke? But I have written all those books?! DOH!!

I will make some personal guesstimates ..

• If it capable of hosting life there will be life
• Life will appear to be exiting within the first 200 or so star systems
• Intelligent life will appear to exist but somewhat further out to a point that would explain why we had not heard them previously at somewhere between 90 and 500 light years
• Admittedly I wont be around to see myself proved right towards the top end of that estimate

You see everyone asks me ..

• "They have been listening for years and not heard anything and beaming out messages that no one has answered? There is no life out there."
• I say .. "You know how the speed of light works, yeah?" to which they reply, of course
• "Right then you know that the very closest stars it has taken 4 to 20 years for that message to reach out to them and the reply takes the same amount of time as it did getting there?
• 4 Light years .. 8 years to get a reply if they heard it
• Average distance to what you can see might be 40 to 100 years meaning .. 80 to 200 years for an answer .. if you happen to be pointing your message at the star system with life that has reached a level technologically that you can answer
• Now I would ask them how long has it been since we have been sending messages out and how many stars we are capable of sending messages to simultaneously
• Eyes go wide as realisation sets in, 'Yeah .. might not quite reach us in our lifetime'

Life at Alpha Centauri? Maybe, NASA says http://flip.it/Ys637R

TO THE MOONS AND BACK

Well it's been .. awhile.

Yeah .. plans for scuppered. Went downhill and had to move another 250 miles yet again.

Then found out a health condition they sheet knew about is very deadly and they didn't tell me.

Yeah .. put myself and a lot of other people in danger and cost thousand upon thousands.

Yeah sounds like faked crazy shit? No.

It's been in one magazine called Love It which you can see the cover of and read about on my corruption blog if you look up a post titled 'The Fugliness' and there is one coming in less than two weeks. This next one will be the third publication in the mainstream media and there is more planned.

But while all that has and is going on I've not got to do very much in the way of astrophysics researching. Well .. I've done a bit.

But tonight I saw this one.

They are talking now about habitable exomoons in other star systems.

Star systems they said for a long time would not be host to any planets. Since a child I simply refused to believe this and hoped that one day in my lifetime I would be proved right.

Sometimes the maths just .. sort of appears to me, as strange as it sounds. Blew a fair few minds with that ability and other insight like abilities on my way to my computer science degree.

So .. let's have a little theory ..

I'll state that I think it would be rare for a star system to have as little as three planets. The lower the number the rarer it becomes.

At the other end I'm going to go with as many as a dozen. I might want to double that of they decide some kuiper belt objects, like Pluto, Seems Makemake and planet nine or ten of we ever find it, are reclassified as full on planets. Which they are.

Of course we're hunting for this elusive tenth planet but what's not to say they're are not more? We simply don't know. We have only our own solar system to go on and there are still things we haven't found.

So twelve full on planets could be the upper limit?

Other star systems might have more than ours and so might we had done. For instance or asteroid belt? A planet that failed to form or was destroyed? In other systems they might not have had this occur?

So .. exomoons?

What I found funny was someone stating there would not be that many because of the size they would need to be?

Umm .. have they read the same reports as me? Lol. They have found countless super Jupiters way bigger than our own red spotted giant. A great many it sounds like and closer to their star too. Even rocky planets way bigger than Earth have been discovered.

Yeah .. way bigger rocky planets and way bigger had giants means?! Way bigger bloody everything!

Way bigger than our moon and way bigger than Titan.

Here's some math insight and a theory ..

It's my belief that, upon thinking about these discoveries, that habitable moons may well outnumber habitable planets?!

You need the right body with a given zone and the planet needs to be just right as does a moon. But we all know moons vastly outnumber planets.

If it turns out that very large has giants are commonly found closer to their star and these have more moons than Jupiter and bigger moons than Jupiter then your talking about two, three and maybe even four moons in a star system that could be habitable?!

Yeah this would be pretty unique to have as many as four and would likely need two super Jupiters close enough to their star. Might require the right kind of star to meet these conditions too?

So you have a chance of two or more within a system.

I think with a planet being habitable it's more likely to be just one.

Even that which we are currently seeing is a tiny fraction and even once we've looked at all that we can see it will still be a tiny fraction.

The Milky Way Galaxy alone is a bloody big place and the University is so large it might as well be infinite.

Then there are other things we won't know once we've seen everything close by. Like ..

• How are star systems laid out as you get to the galactic core of Saggitarius A*?
• How about stars and their systems that roam intergalactic space?
• What about those on the outer edges?
• What about those in the spiral arms?
• What about those between the spiral arms?
• What about those in the bar?

Hmm are we supposed to have a bar? Can't remember, I think we did but maybe this was doubted at some point?

Well you see where I'm going?

• Star systems in gas clouds?
• Stars in nebulas?

The list just goes on and on of what we simply do not know.

They thought very few or no stars had planets and I didn't believe that.

That thought star systems all developed the same way and looked like ours, gas giants bring further out and I didn't believe that.

It's not a question of whether habitable worlds are out there and this goes for inhabited worlds too! The question is how far do we have to go to find them?

In our quadrant of the galaxy?

In our neighbourhood?

The other side of the galaxy?

Andromeda?

I just hope we start getting images of these exoplanets and their moons in my lifetime.

Admittedly that might not be very much time.

Our Galaxy Might Be Teeming With Habitable Exomoons http://flip.it/.6iVqP