Welcome to Proxima Centauri

You know, someday humans are going to figure out how to travel to the stars at speeds that make such activity even more attractive than they are now. We do it in our dreams, via Star Trek, science fiction books, and movies. We already know about warp drive and other faster-than-light methods of travel. We just have to make them work.

One of these times, we’ll make it real. And where will we head? The nearest star could prove interesting. It’s called Proxima Centauri, and it lies about 4.2 light-years away from us. It’s not like the welcoming, yellow-white Sun we’re used to, however.

Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf, and so far, even using the good telescopes, astronomers haven’t spotted any supermassive planets around it (let alone Earth-sized ones). So, a trip to Proxima might be a quick fly by unless some hitherto unknown Earth-like world shows up in a future planet search.

Still, it would make an interesting study for the onboard astrophysics team of any interstellar spacecraft heading out “thataway”.  Proxima is a low-mass star, and due to some pecularities in its core, it will burn through all its hydrogen, but likely won’t be hot enough or massive enough to fuse helium. This M-class dwarf just isn’t in the Sun’s league.  But, it’s still a viable and interesting place to head out to on a first reconnaissance trip. You never know, it just might have some planets we haven’t spotted. If they’re there, then planetary scientists can start to think about whether or not they are in their star’s habitable zone and if they could support life. That’s the reason for exploring the universe isn’t it? To find other worlds, other civilizations…