Alpha Centauri’s Two Sun-like Stars
Introduction:
To our current knowledge, Earth is the only planet in our solar system, in the Milky Way, and the rest of the observable universe to harbor living organisms. Research over the last 50 years indicates that if we have any hope of finding life, we must delve outside of our solar system.
Alpha Centauri:
The nearest solar system to ours is the triple star system, Alpha Centauri. The star system contains two Sun-Like stars, Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B. The third star and closest star to us, Proxima Centauri, is 4.3 light-years away.
The Problem:
The speed of light is 300,000 kilometers per second; at that speed, the entire globe could be circumnavigated 7.5 times in one second. With that speed considered, it takes light more than 4 years to reach Alpha Centauri from Earth. In addition, Voyager 1 is currently traveling at a rate of 17.3 km/s, at this speed to travel to Proxima Centauri would take 73,000 years. The fastest ever spacecraft, the Parker Solar Probe, reached a maximum speed of 192 km/s; it would take this probe nearly 7,000 years to reach Alpha Centauri. So clearly, our traditional methods of space travel are not an option.
In this article, 3 possible methods to arrive at Alpha Centauri will be discussed.
Solar Sailing:
Solar sail propulsion describes a method of space travel similar to that of wind pushing sailboats across water. Essentially, an extremely thin, lightweight reflective pane would be attached to a spacecraft to propel it forward. These mirror-like panes are pushed using sunlight. The issue is that these sails need to be durable enough to survive the arduous journey to Alpha Centauri. A new initiative called Breakthrough Starshot offers a solution using ultrathin sails made of aluminum oxide, and molybdenum disulfide. As mentioned, earlier solar sails used sunlight for power; this project would utilize ground-based lasers to reach much greater speeds. With the use of these lasers, a small probe could reach speeds nearly ⅕ the speed of light, or 60,000 kilometers per second. At this speed, Alpha Centauri could be reached in 20 years.
Antimatter Propulsion
Antimatter propulsion stems from the idea that every particle has an antiparticle. Antielectrons also known as Positrons (positive electrons) have been experimentally proven to exist. When these particles and antiparticles collide, both particles are annihilated; hence the process is called Antimatter Annihilation. Antimatter propulsion rests on the notion that this matter-antimatter collision releases tremendous amounts of energy; this energy could then be used as fuel. In theory, a few kilograms could allow a rocket to reach 150,000 km/s or half the speed of light. This would allow us to reach Alpha Centauri in less than 10 years. However, there is a problem: there is a huge lack of antimatter in the universe; there may even be no anti-particles that naturally exist. So, we have to create antimatter, if we hope to practically use it. This leads to another problem, it is extraordinarily expensive to make antimatter. Nasa claims, “Antimatter is the most expensive substance on Earth.” One gram costs about 62.6 trillion dollars or 3 times the GDP of the entire United States (as of 2020).
Warp Speed
The final method discussed today will be warp speed. Einstein’s law of relativity tells us that traveling faster than the speed of light is not possible. However, this limit can be surpassed; the Alcubierre Warp Drive would allow us to travel faster than light. This technology shares characteristics with that of the spacecraft in the popular science fiction franchises: Star Wars and Star Trek. A highly theoretical model first proposed by Miguel Acubierre involves the distorting of space-time in a wave. This stretching would theoretically cause the space ahead to contract while the space behind an object expands creating a “warp bubble.” This wave would not actually make an object faster, but it would make the distance needed to be traveled less. With this technology, spacecraft could (on paper) scale millions of light-years in a fraction of the time.
Works Cited
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