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