The eminent astronomer Carl Sagan called our only home a pale blue dot and spoke of the need to treat it carefully. Humanity faces many more threats today than in the past, and one of them - climate change - poses the most serious threat. But if something happens to our planet, where will we go? Recently, a team of scientists from the Interstellar Exploration Initiative took this question seriously. The researchers intend to develop a plan to colonize an exoplanet far from Earth.
This is a really difficult job. According to OneZero, the researchers are considering the possibility of making a long journey to another solar system, namely Proxima Centauri. The flight can take centuries or even millennia. This means that the life of entire generations will pass on board the spacecraft. However, the tasks facing such a mission are so numerous that scientists' comments sound somewhat unexpected.
Theoretically, travel to another star system is possible
Andreas Hein, executive director of the Interstellar Exploration Initiative, told OneZero that there are no fundamental obstacles to such a journey from a physics standpoint. There are a number of other problems that researchers have yet to find a solution to, but as far as the fundamental laws of physics are concerned, none of them will be violated. Nevertheless, today we cannot simply build a spaceship, populate it with people and send it into space. Researchers have to figure out how to maintain human life on such a long space journey. And if you recall the results of recent studies, then even 50 days spent on the ISS are fraught with impaired blood flow. In addition, sending a man to Mars is still questionable, since scientists have not found an effective way to protect astronauts from deadly cosmic radiation. Moreover, there are other health problems that can arise from prolonged weightlessness, and some of them are still largely unexplored.
But even if we assume that in the future most of the problems described above will be solved, there is still another unknown - namely, the exoplanet to which the spacecraft will head. Will she be hospitable?
Before you is the twin of the Earth - exoplanet in the star system Proxima Centauri - Proxima Centauri B.
I cannot but note that the development of this plan resembles the plot of the science fiction work of the French writer Bernard Verber "Star Butterfly". The novel tells the story of a billionaire and a talented scientist who are working together to create a spaceship called the Star Butterfly. The ship has to set off on a thousand-year journey to a distant planet, and 144 thousand people will be aboard the butterfly. What happened to the passengers of the Star Butterfly during the flight becomes clear by the end of the trip, since only two will get to the planet. It turns out that scientists have to consider not only the obvious, physical threats to space travel, but also how people who will not have the opportunity to leave the spacecraft will behave. Besides, where is the guarantee thatthat a few generations later the colonists will not change their minds about the mission they carry from birth?
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Lyubov Sokovikova