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What is Required to Send People, Satellites, or Other Objects to Explore Potentially Habitable Planets?

-- Abbi | February 7, 2023

Artist's conception of Proxima Centauri b, a small brownish Earth-like planet that orbits Proxima Centauri. In the distant upper left of the image Proxima Centauri, in reddish hues, ejects a powerful stellar flare in white and yellow.

Question:

Will we ever be able to send any people, satellites or objects to explore potentially habitable planets outside the solar system?

-- Abbi

Answer:

You can get a sense of the biggest problem with sending anything to other potentially habitable planets by checking out the answer to a question asking how to chart a path through the Galaxy using extrasolar planetary systems. The nearest star with an extrasolar planet is Proxima Centauri, which is about 4.2 light years away. The fastest speed achieved by a space craft to-date is the Parker Solar Probe at 163 km/s, or about 586,800 km/h. Light travels about 300,000 km per second, or about 9.46 trillion km in one year. The distance to Proxima Centauri is then 4.2 x 9.46 trillion km, or about 39.73 trillion km. If we travel as fast as the Parker Solar probe, it would take (39.73 trillion km)/(586,800 km/h) = 67.7 million hours, or about 7700 years, to get to Proxima Centauri. Therein lies the biggest problem with sending stuff to extrasolar planets. The time needed to travel the great distances to these extrasolar planets is currently prohibitive.

-- Jeff Mangum

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