New Delhi, Dec 20: NASA in the quest of life outside the solar system is planning an interstellar mission to the three-star Alpha Centauri system. Even though the mission has not been named and the technology required for getting a craft there does not exist yet, it has been decided that launch date would coincide with the 100th anniversary of the first moon landing. The mission requires a craft that would have to travel at a minimum of 10 per cent of the speed of light.
Even if a record-breaking tenth of the speed of light is achieved, the Alpha Centauri constellation which is 4.4 light years away would still be a 44-year trip. The nearest neighbour could be reached only by 2113.
“It’s very nebulous,” Anthony Freeman, at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), told the New Scientist.
NASA is also considering sending tiny probes powered by lasers which in theory may be able to reach a quarter of the speed of light. Other techniques that are being considered are harnessing nuclear reactions, or through collisions between antimatter and matter.
Voyager 1 craft, launched in 1977 is the only spacecraft that has successfully gone out of our solar system so far. The spacecraft has provided astonishing new insights into the planets and moons within our own solar system, inspite of the limitations in the technology it is equipped with. It is currently 11.7 billion miles from Earth, and is trundling along at less than 1 per cent of the speed of light.

A planet orbiting Alpha Centauri would have two or even three suns, because the star system is made up of a trio of stars (Image: Michael S. Helfenbein) Nasa is preparing to launch a mission which could answer the question of whether humanity is alone in the universe. The space agency has begun planning for a mission to humanity’s nearest star system: Alpha Centauri. Recent research suggests there are several planets in this system and some of them could have the right conditions to support life. It’s hoped that a probe will be sent to Alpha Centauri in 2069, which probably means few people alive today will be around to see the results. An artist’s illustration of a ‘light sail’ spaceship (Picture: Breakthrough Initiatives) The Paranal Observatory in Chile, which houses the European Southern Observatory’s ‘Very Large Telescope (Picture: ESO) However, there’s one major problem. Using current technology,

 it would take 30,000 years to travel the 25 trillion miles (4.37 light years) to Alpha Centauri. Nasa hopes it will be able to build spacecraft which travel at one-tenth of the speed of light, meaning a probe could journey to the star system in about 44 years. Once the probe is there, it will scan the planets to see if they are home to alien organisms or capable of supporting life. ‘We’ll be able to characterise the atmosphere. We’ll be able to see the planet, assuming it’s not covered in clouds,’ JPL’s Stacy Weinstein-Weiss, lead author of a paper outlining the concept, told New Scientist. This chart shows the stars visible in the night sky, with Alpha Centauri circled in red (Picture: Nasa) Although the plan is only ‘nebulous’ at this stage, Nasa has outlined the goals of the mission which means it is in the very early stages of planning. The mission will not be manned and will have to use some new kind of spaceship, such as a ‘light sail‘ which is propelled forward using the radiation produced by the sun and could reach the very high speeds required to get to another star system. Alpha Centauri is made up of three stars. Alpha Centauri A and B are both bright, whilst Alpha Centauri C (which is also known as Proxima Centauri) is a dimmer red dwarf.

NASA Could Send Probe To Nearby Exoplanet By 2069
Most of the technology NASA needs for such a mission does not exist yet. (File photo)
WASHINGTON:  To look for signs of life beyond our solar system, the US space agency could send a spacecraft to the nearby Alpha Centauri system by 2069, according to a mission concept presented by a NASA scientist.

Details of the mission concept was presented by Anthony Freeman of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the 2017 American Geophysical Union conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, the New Scientist reported on Tuesday.

Although most of the technology NASA needs for such a mission does not exist yet, it could involve travelling at one-tenth the speed of light.

The impetus came from a 2016 US funding bill telling NASA to study interstellar travel that could reach at least 10 per cent of the speed of light by 2069, the report said.

The Alpha Centauri star system, located in the constellation of Centaurus at a distance of 4.3 light-years from Earth, is the closest star system to the Earth. It has three stars -- Centauri A, Centauri B, and Proxima Centauri.


The European Southern Observatory (ESO) discovered in 2016 an Earth-sized planet that orbits in the habitable zone around Proxima Centauri.

New research, published in the Astronomical Journal, suggests that there may some small, Earth-like planets around Alpha Centauri A and B as well.

Right now, only one human-made spacecraft has left our solar system?Voyager 1, which launched 40 years ago and is currently traveling at about 38,000 miles per hour, less than one per cent of one per cent of the speed of light, the Newsweek reported.