| |
 |
|
|
| |
There are many great
features available to you once you register at TrekUnited,
including:
- Richer content, access to many features that are
disabled for guests like commenting on our news
articles.
- Create your own blog, or personal gallery.
- Access to a great community, where you can interect
with like minded individuals.
- Access to our chat room, and guest chats.
- Access to our network of sites, including Galactica.com.
- Access to our submit news feature, members can
try their hand at online journalism.
- It's simple, it's easy and it's free
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
 |
|
|
|
|
Alpha Centauri may have an Earth-like planet |
|
|
|
Written by Derek Kessler on
Sunday, 09 March 2008
|
|
|
|
 Could this be a case of life imitating art? In Star Trek, the Alpha Centauri system was mentioned on occassion, as both the location of the human-built Proxima Colony and the retirement home of warp drive inventor Zefram Cochrane before he disappeared into deep space. Now new computer models indicate that there is a possibility for their to actually be habitable planets around Alpha Centauri B, one of the stars in a trinary star system. The Alpha Centauri system has the closest star to our sun, at a mere 4.33 light-years distant.
The computer simulations conducted by University of California, Santa Cruz graduate student Javiera Guedes revealed that planets could have formed in the 'habitable zone' of Alpha Centauri B. The habitable zone is a narrow orbital strip where liquid water can exist, and thus, life as we know it. In our own solar system, only Earth falls inside the habitable zone, with both Venus and Mars sitting right on the cusp of the land of the living (Venus is too hot, and Mars too cold to have liquid water). The brighter a star, the further out a planet must orbit in order to be habitable, and as a star ages, it grows brighter, slowly moving the habitable zone out.
Analysis of Alpha Centauri B has revealed that the star contains a higher than average concentration of heavy elements than most stars. The tertiary star system also produces gravitational stresses that would hamper the formation of Jupiter-sized gas giants. Both factors lead astronomers to believe that the conditions around our nearest interstellar neighbor were ripe for the formation of small rocky terrestrial planets like those in our own inner solar system. Combined with the findings of Guedes' simulations, the chances for a life-supporting planet have risen even further.
The prefered method for detecting planets is essentially the doppler shift. As planets orbit their sun, they exert small gravitational tugs on the star. Those shifts can be detected by our telescopes as miniscule variations in the star's brightness. If variations are detected on a regular basis, astronomers can not only determine that there are planets, but also the number of planets, their size, and how far out they orbit. And our most powerful telescopes can resolve the brightest of stars to a speck no larger than a few pixels, so directly observing an extrasolar planet is currently out of the question.
Because of Alpha Centauri B's brightness and relative proximity to Earth, detecting such variations would be easy work for astronomers. The work would be further aided by Alpha Centauri's position high in the southern sky, making it visible for most of the year (much as Polaris and the Big Dipper are visible year-round to much of the northern hemisphere).
The Alpha Centauri system's closeness to Earth has made it a favorite for Star Trek writers, including placing Proxima Colony, the first extrasolar human colony, on an orbiting planet. Apart from behing the retirement home for Zefram Cochrane (TOS: "Metamorphosis"; ENT: "Future Tense"), the planet was described as being 'a beautiful place' by Captain James T. Kirk (TOS: "Tomorrow is Yesterday"). Starfleet scientist Greta Vanderweg was born in the Alpha Centauri system in 2338 (DS9: "Field of Fire") and after the Dominion invasion of Betazed in 2374, Alpha Centauri (along with Vulcan, Tellar, and Andoria) was at risk of being the Dominion's next target (DS9: "In the Pale Moonlight"). Alpha Centauri also appeared on numerous star charts in The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Enterprise. Though never canonized through on-screen mention, it is widely believed by fans that Alpha Centauri was one of the founding members of the United Federation of Planets, along with Earth and the afore mentioned Vulcan, Tellar, and Andoria.
Right now there are no programs dedicated to the study of Alpha Centauri, though with Guedes' findings, that may soon change.
Discuss: TrekUnited Forum
|
|
|
|
|
"Rumors of my assimilation have been greatly exaggerated."
|
|
|
|
