Proxima centauri is only about 4.2 light years away from the solar system, about 40 trillion kilometers. Although it is the closest star to the solar system, it will take 18000 years to travel from the earth to proxima centauri at the current level of human science and technology. Although I live next door, it is still far away.
In the movie The Wandering Earth, in order to prevent the earth from being destroyed by the sun, human beings exhausted all kinds of resources and went through all kinds of hardships to come to their new home, the neighboring Milky Way. So are neighboring galaxies really the new hope of mankind?
Unlike the solar system with only one star, proxima centauri is not the only leader in neighboring galaxies. Strictly speaking, proxima centauri is a ternary star system (if humans really move to proxima centauri, Koreans can claim that proxima centauri belongs to South Korea). It is a star system consisting of three stars, located in Centauri.
Proxima centauri is one of the triple galaxies, whose scientific name is Alpha Centauri C (the other two are Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B respectively). Because these three stars are constantly moving with each other, in different historical periods, the world's best "closest to the earth" crown will be worn by these three stars in turn.
Proxima centauri is a red dwarf star with low surface temperature, poor brightness and reddish color, which we can't even observe with naked eyes. According to the classification of apparent magnitude of star brightness in astronomy, the darkest magnitude observed by human eyes is 6 (the smaller the value, the brighter it is), while the apparent magnitude of proxima centauri is 1 1, which shows how dim it is. Because of this, although proxima centauri is very close to the solar system, people haven't discovered its existence for a long time, and they didn't know about proxima centauri until the appearance of high-performance space telescope.
In 20 16, scientists discovered a planet in proxima centauri-proxima b, which is very close to the earth in size and its mass is 1.3 times that of the earth! Proximal star B always faces its star proxima centauri, and the other side always faces away from proxima centauri, just as the moon always faces the earth with the same face.
It was once speculated that there was life on proxima b, but it was found impossible after calculation. The reason is that this planet is too close to its main star, only 7.27 million kilometers, and its surface has been suffering from the high temperature and radiation of proxima centauri.
Moreover, as a red dwarf, proxima centauri is only 12.5% of the mass of the sun, and its state is extremely unstable. On March 20 17, a flare burst in proxima centauri was 10 times stronger than the strongest solar flare, and the radiation received by neighboring star B was about 4000 times higher than that received by the earth, which was extremely harmful to life.
Therefore, the researchers believe that neighboring star B may be hit by strong flares many times. Even if there is liquid water and atmosphere on the surface, it has already been destroyed, and the environment is not suitable for life.
From this point of view, even if the earth escapes from the solar system and continues to exist in neighboring galaxies, it is not as optimistic as expected.
If proxima centauri can't meet the living conditions of mankind, where will mankind go?
Scientists have given another more ideal choice-Tiancangwu.
Tiancang No.5 is located in Cetacea. Its mass is about 70%-80% of the sun, and its surface is almost inactive and very stable, and this mass is just the stage when the combustion is relatively stable and helium flash will not occur. What an ideal destination! The fly in the ointment is that it is a little far from the solar system, about 12 light years.
In 20 17, BadFly released an FPS game "tiancang v: the origin of tausetti is unknown". In the game, players escape from their crashed spaceship "ESS Meridian" through the escape capsule and land on a strange and unknown planet in the five-star system of Tiancang. Through your exploration of this planet, you will find many beautiful and dangerous elements.
Perhaps, finding a new home is also a beautiful and dangerous journey.
End.
Previous articles:
A little popular science on the wandering earth (1) wandering planet
Little Popular Science on Wandering Earth (II) Red Giant Star and Helium Flash
Small popular science on the wandering earth (3) cosmic speed
Small Popular Science on Wandering Earth (IV) Artificial Gravity
Small Popular Science on the Wandering Earth (5) Heavy Nuclear Fusion
Small Popular Science on Wandering Earth (6) Gravitational Slingshot
Small Popular Science on the Wandering Earth (7) Roche Limit
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