Looking For A Sister Earth At Alpha Centauri (Update)
BoldlyGo Institute and NASA Sign Space Act Agreement for Joint Cooperation on Project Blue Mission
“The Space Act Agreement is non-reimbursable, with no exchange of funds between NASA and BoldlyGo. It allows NASA employees – scientists and engineers – to interact with the Project Blue team through its mission development phases to help review mission design plans and to share scientific results on Alpha Centauri and exoplanets along with the latest technology tests being undertaken at NASA facilities. NASA’s engagement in its consulting role will be triggered through a set of milestones as technical work is accomplished and the private consortium leading Project Blue raises the funds necessary to continue mission development. The agreement also calls for the raw and processed data from Project Blue to be made available to NASA within one year of its acquisition on orbit via a publicly accessible online data archive. The Project Blue team has been planning such an archive for broadly sharing the data with the global astronomical community and for enabling citizen scientist participation.”
Project Blue Mission For Earthlike Planets in Alpha Centauri Rallies Community Support
“On Wednesday, September 6, 2017, BoldlyGo Institute launched a crowdfunding campaign to help support the initial design phase of mission development.”
Space Telescope Designed to Directly Image the Habitable Zone of Alpha Centauri
Keith’s 6 Sept note: As of 8:05 pm EDT, after only 12 hours, $45,065 or 26% of the $175,000 goal has already been raised.
Keith’s 12 Sept update: As of 8:50 am today, after less than a week, $66,129 or 38% has been raised
The good thing about this is that the Alpha Centauri is close enough to get good imaging of, so we will be able to study it in great detail. It will be interesting to see just what it looks like.
Personally I am more interested in the presence of asteroids, gas giants moons or smaller terrestrial planets like Mercury or even a Mars. But in the early 1960’s Rand Corporation did assign a 5% chance for an Earth like planet to be located in the system.
I wonder what data was used to reach that conclusion.
I also wonder what would happen if “Earth 2” were discovered less than 5 LY away? Would it fire up them public? How Earth-like would it need to be?
And what if telltale chemicals were detected in the atmosphere as well? SF, I know.